Walport Maritime Training Films: The affordable way to promote fleet safety!

• One-off purchase allows you to manage your budget – no contracts, no recurring rental costs
• Contributes towards loss prevention
• The ideal supplement to existing training methods - fleet discounts available
• Increase crew awareness of key safety & environmental issues

Costa Concordia – the Human Element.

The following article is taken directly from ‘The Ship Repair Newsletter’ (No: 1389), published weekly by A&A Thorpe (shipaat@aol.com) .

The opinion expressed is close to my own feelings on the subject, hence my decision to publish the text:

“The Costa Concordia has been on her side against the Italian island of Giglio for about one week now. This incident is the last in a long line of such tragedies, which date back to the Titanic and include such names as Andrea Doria, Herald of Free Enterprise, Estonia, Arkadia etc. however, there has not been such an incident which is, most definitely, the result of human error.

The captain of the Costa Concordia – Francesco Schettino, has already admitted that he was sailing away from the recommended course, for various reasons. The owning company Costa Crociere has also quickly distanced themselves from the causes of the disaster, also blaming human error. Meanwhile, the Captain has been arrested and placed under house arrest pending court proceedings. He also appears to have abandoned the ship before all passengers were safe, with a rather bizarre comment that he “tripped up and fell into a lifeboat” – sounds a bit ‘Ismayesk’ to me.

(For those too young – this refers to J Bruce Ismay, the owner of the Titanic, who managed to obtain a place in a lifeboat, while so many passengers stayed on-board and faced certain death. He eventually committed suicide).

The fact that the Costa Captain has now proved to be inadequate at his job at a time when his expertise was most required, beggars the question – ‘How did he get the job in the first place and how did he get a command?” – Surely Costa Crocier’s personnel department (sorry HR) must look at their procedures for both recruitment and promotions.

As this week ends (Friday January 20^th) it appears that the search for survivors is over and it is simply a recovery operation for the remaining missing people, which will now be dealt with – a hard task for the Italian navy divers (who have come out of this tragedy with flying colours and the highest praise.)

There have been so many comments from people to bring in new procedures to prevent this type of incident happening again. It was easy with the Titanic – there should be sufficient lifeboats and life rafts on-board for all passengers and crew, and the Herald of Free Enterprise – there should be monitoring equipment on the bridge to show that the front door is closed. In both cases new maritime laws were introduced. But how can you legislate for human error? All you can do is make sure the personnel on-board the ship are adequately trained and adequately assessed for the owner (and passengers) to be confident that the ship is in good hands.

Many pundits are also questioning the size of the modern-day cruiseship – are they too big for an effective evacuation to be. Obviously, if a vessel goes onto its side, the launching of lifeboats becomes harder – if not impossible. Two points – can lifeboat manufacturers come up with an answer? Or can ship designers come up with a way by which the vessel does not go onto its side. After all, the gash in the Costa Concordia’s side was of little difference to the gash on the Titanic. So how did the Costa Concordia roll over while the Titanic went down by her head?

Although this is the first major disaster occurring in the cruiseship industry since such large vessels have been introduced, the effect upon the cruise industry is sure to be enormous. Immediately, the share price in Carnival Cruises fell by some 20% and many pundits were predicting that the cruise industry will lose some US$85-90m in cancelled bookings. That is inevitable and it will be up to the cruise ship operators as to how to redress this problem. There will certainly be more emphasis (if that is possible) placed on life boat drills in the immediate future.

So what will happen to the wreck? The first task will be to remove the ship’s fuel oil to prevent any environmental problems if this oil leaks. The next task will be to salvage the ship. Many believe she can be salvaged and repaired (the Exxon Valdez suffered massive damage to her bottom area – but was repaired). But who is going to book a cruise on a ship which has sunk once?

Therefore, salvage is the only answer – this operation likely to involve cutting the ship into pieces and removing those pieces from the area one by one. This is likely to take many weeks, if not years – so the wreck of the Costa Concordia will be a reminder for many months to all those who sail– never take the sea for granted!”

I think the key point here is “never take the sea for granted”. It must be remembered that a cruise ship is first and foremost a ship, and a hotel second. Operators, crew and passengers forget this at their peril.

Chris Young

Opinion disclaimer:

Opinions expressed on this site are those of the individual contributor, and are not necessarily those of Headland Media or Walport International. Accident reports are gathered from multiple sources, and their accuracy is not warranted by the publishers of this blog.