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You know how it is, you're just cruising along and then....

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Genesis

Genesis

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Hatteras Model
45' CONVERTIBLE-Series II (1984 - 1992)
... you run aground! You'd sink too, being seriously holed, except that the water is not deep enough!

120114102906-italy-ship-3-horizontal-gallery.jpg


Oops....

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/14/world/europe/italy-cruise-deaths/index.html?hpt=hp_t1
 
Someone really committed the CEFU (can't spell this out on line): several people dead, more injured, and sank the ship. And from what I've read the crew kept telling everyone everything was fine. You can tell by the photo everything was not fine. I wonder if this ship had been in this particular port before, or if this was a new call for them. Photos I saw showed rocks embedded in the hull where she hit the bottom and tore it open.
 
Reports indicate the ship was running a route that was a regular run for it. So that is a matter of of simple record. However, conjecture and some reports indicate that it was off course earlier in the day, when it holed out the hull, Titanic like 133' long gash. The captain chose to try to make port, but when she began to take on water too rapidly, he tried to 'beach', but it that area the 'beach' is the area where she went down. So if that is true, she didn't hole out where she lays, but did that earlier. Not to say that the hull was damaged further, by the final run onto the rocks.

The Captain did abandon ship himself a couple hours before she settled and several charges are pending, per internet reports. Also, deployment of liferafts or boats was very erratic, again according to reports.

I was on an all night project, so had time to follow this, from when first reported. The internet is very interesting to follow, as reports pop up globally, over time. Supposedly there are photos of the hull damage and gash, but I have not been able to find any of those.
 
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I've seen photos with the gash in the hull and what appears to be a huge ROCK in the side of the boat. Eek!

Reports are that the skipper was 1/2 mile or so off the beach at the time of the grounding and tried to make a run for the beach when he realized the ship was hosed. IMHO that's too damn close to be running at night and at speed, but obviously he thought it was ok.

It's also obvious he was wrong.
 
News report this morning mention that some ships pass closer to the island on purpose, either to give passengers a better view or to "salute the island". To be taken with a grain of salt...

What I don't get is how a state of the art, modern cruise ship can end up on its side. Yes, this is a big hole but which should t have affected more than a fraction of the compartments. Would the outcome have been the same if it had been a real ship, not a floating, top heavy condo?
 
Yet another previous sunk cruise ship in those waters years ago:

Our ferryboat was the first ship to encounter the sinking cruise ship named the Sea Diamond just off the coast of Santorini.

Sinking Sea Diamond 2
Sinking Sea DiamondThe ship was floundering on its side when we arrived and before long there over 30 boats, 6 helicopters and (if you can believe it) 2 enormous warplanes circling the area. I have NO idea what they were doing there. It all seemed just a bit excessive, especially because NONE of them seemed to actually be doing any good. It took nearly 2 hours before they even figured out a way to get the people off the boat. Over 1,200 people were on the ship and the captain claimed that unpredictable currents carried his boat into a reef that was clearly marked by buoys

Read more: http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-bl...orldwide06/1175159460/tpod.html#ixzz1jYi6WtpZ
 
"Would the outcome have been the same if it had been a real ship, not a floating, top heavy condo?"
Kinda like EB Hatts? Oops sorry my bad.
 
Some things never change..... You would think that after 100 years of "progress" that ships' hulls would somehow be designed to survive this kind of occurrence. I wonder if Pascal's comment is correct. It seems logical but then again on Dec 7, 1941 one of our Battleships (USS Utah) at Pearl Harbor rolled over after suffering a couple of torpedo hits on it's Port side. A Battleship of that period had most of it's weight down low, what with the heavy hulls etc. They just looked a lot more stable than these "floating condos" as Pascal calls modern cruise ships, and yet it rolled over. Just as I prefer the appearance of "traditional" ship designs such as the original Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeths over modern cruise ships, I also prefer the "look" of classic Hatteras designs over the modern Nike sneaker look. I understand that the new "modern" cruise ships need all that superstructure to accommodate everyone and all the amenities that are required to be competitive in the marketplace. Marine engineers and Naval architects are going to be very busy trying to second guess each other for a long time.

Walt
 
It's not the ship's fault .it's the Captain....the buck and the rocks stopped there...as usual with groundings and collisions. No reason to look for "new" reasons ..keep it simple, operator error.
 
You're right Dennis, it's not the ships' fault however given that humans are prone to failures in judgement that lead to such disasters, is the reason that so called "improvements" to enhance safety and efficiency are constantly being developed. I suspect that the expression that "familiarity breeds contempt" applies here. Add a touch of arrogance with a dash of ego and presto..another mess. It seems to me that modern engineering, including possibly some sort of double hull such as modern tankers are supposed to have and it should lessen risks of sinking and loss of life. I am not an ME or a Navel Architect, but I have faith that something can be designed to help cancel the stupidity factor. Of course the cost would be much greater than we presently have but just as a large part (reason) that cars are much better engineered and safer by necessity raises the price, our cars are much safer and in most ways far superior to cars of 30 -50 years ago.

Walt
 
Hi All,

It's just hard to believe that this ship which had to be outfitted to the max with every concievabe type of state of the art navigational technology failed to sense and alert anyone that it was seriously off course which given redundant systems means that obviously the technology must have been ignored and the captain and officers clearly guilty of depraved indifference.
 
I agree with Dennis. I think these ships are well-designed and safe except for the nuts behind the wheel. You can't design a ship, or anything else, which is proof against human negligence and stupidity. Now, if it comes out that all this was really the fault of a malfunctioning piece of nav equipment, then I'll post an apology. But I suspect that is not going to be the case.

And, since there are already eyewitness account of the captain not staying on the ship until everyone was off (and since "everyone" STILL isn't off), I think it is safe to say that his behavior in leaving the ship early was unprofessional.
 
Last I heard was that the Captain said the rock was not on his chart, of course if you are 4 miles off course and looking at the chart for the correct course, there would be no rock. On report stated that his was common practice to run closer to shore for sightseeing reasons "in the dark" ??

We had a similar incident in BC a few yrs ago, rumor has it that the wheelhouse crew of the major ferry was having a bit of slap and tickle and the ship ran headlong into a very unforgiving Island, sank, with 2 missing presumed drowned, all others got off safely. The crew and the union blamed lack of proper training, all crew were certified, so if that's the case, all BC ferries are being crewed by certified idiots.
 
Given the reports (including in the WSJ) that the ship was as little as 150 yards off the shore at the time of the impact (which incidentally is less distance to shore than the length of the vessel; I'm not sure I believe that but it is being reported!) I don't see what having "the best equipment" had to do with this.

This sounds very much like someone got a bit wide in their britches, was showboating (literally) for the tourists and discovered rocky bottoms and big boats in close proximity are not all that wise of a combination.

$500m loss for the insurers, a nasty loss for Carnival (the parent company), inevitable lawsuits up the ying-yang aimed at everyone involved, several dead (probably mostly crew that were in the area of the impact at the time), the ship's master is in custody for allegedly leaving the vessel while there were pax in peril still on board and they've now got a vessel full of fuel that they need to, at minimum, drain before it either slides down what it's sitting on now (there are reports that the actual bottom, if it becomes "un-stuck" is 300' below) or breaks up.

Oh, yeah, one other thing -- there are reports that there was no SOLAS drill before they left port, which I'm sure helped a great deal when it came time to actually use those procedures "in anger." I don't know about the rules in Europe but in the US cruise ships may not leave port until there has been a full muster drill and every pax has been accounted for at their muster station -- with their lifejacket mounted on their body.
 
This site has some AIS tracks, don't know how accurate they are but they show the ship passing between Giglio and a smaller island thru narrow cut. An American couple was interviews this morning and stated that during the grounding they saw a small island on starboard side which would confirm that AIS track

If so, he was not judt off course, he tried to pass thru a narrow cut!
 
Here I go again with grounding stories on the Great Lakes.
1) 1967, while I was a lowly AB on a 700' GL ore carrier, we ran directly onto the beach at Drummond Island in N. Lake Huron. We missed the harbor by at least 1/2 mile, because when I ran to the bow from aft, where I was getting lines ready, I could see only rocky shoreline in both directions. I judiously ran back aft, because I could hear a couple of the Mates, having an animated discussion about the condition of the hull at the bow. Luckily we were running 'light' with water ballast and later pumped it off and pulled ourselves free back out into the lake and went up to the harbor and took on the load.
2) 60's or 70's: German Salty ran onto a reef off of Alpena MI and Thunder Bay, in 1964 or so, fetching up on the rocks. She was still there years later, when I went by in 1992, while delivering a Chris Craft 35' Cabin Cruiser for a Dr. friend, but only the highest aft superstructure was still there, since she had been badly beaten down by winter ice and waves. Hatteras component to that story is that running a 17k# 35' CC is quite different than a 35k# 43' Hatt. That I remember.
3) Same as #2, except West of the Mackinaw Bridge, where another Salty fetched up on yet another reef, this time in Lk, MI. I remember that it was about 1961, because we went by in a 118' yacht, on which I was a deckhand while in HS, and the ship was still pretty intact, well up on the rocks.
4) Oh, and under the guidance of a rookie XO, the Coast Guard ran one of her venerable bouy tenders directly up onto the rocks. Seems that she had been pulling bouys near the reef/island, and the Captain gave the order to his new XO to get under way and then left the bridge to go to his cabin. Well (she- can I give the gender), failed to get under way immediately and 20 minutes later, the ship had swung around and was on a heading directly for the reef, instead of out into the lake. When the order was given to finally 'get underway' occurred, in short order the ship ran directly up onto the rocks. Since this was late fall, by Spring, she had been pushed up onto the reef and was fatally damaged. The CG somehow pulled her to deep water and sank her there. Happended in the 70's, so don't remember details.
 
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Here a good replay of the GPS Data from AIS system. The ship was moving at 16 knots at impact! After the impact and losing power, someone on the bridge did quite a job with Seamanship to manuver the ship to shallow water with the trusters. Very interesting.


http://vimeo.com/35351659
 
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Interesting indeed. Thank you.
 
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