Ah, maybe that's what the article I quoted before was referring to--the capacity only along one side of the ship? That would make more sense.

I'm not sure at what point the ship listed too far to make the lifeboats/rafts on the "top" side of the side inoperable. I don't know if any passengers escaped in lifeboats from the "top" side of the ship.

This is one of the worst things about how the incident was handled -- if the captain had ordered abandon ship in a timely fashion, they would have had hours to use all the lifeboats before the ship was listing too much for one side to not work.

This whole story just gets more weird every day. A new article in the Christian Science Monitor has a few more tidbits:

"Between 9 p.m. and 10:50 p.m., Schettino and Ms. Cemortan, who works for the cruise line but was not employed for the cruise, were seen eating and drinking together. The two were caught on an amateur camera at 9 p.m. in a ship restaurant. Cemortan, who gave an interview to a Romanian paper Thursday, said she was dining with Schettino at 9:30 p.m., around the time the boat hit the rocks. Rogelio Barista, a ship cook, told Manila TV he was befuddled by orders from the captain at 10:15 to serve food, including dessert, to Cemortan."

Even if the close approach to the island was authorized by management, I can't imagine any captain who would not be on the bridge during such a risky manuever, watching the helm like a hawk?

Also:

"What Schettino himself told investigators is that he tripped and fell into a lifeboat accidentally while trying to help others. What remains unexplained is how he landed in the same lifeboat as the No. 1 and No. 2 next ranking Concordia officers."

Just a coincidence, no doubt.

Think about this a bit. You are the captain of the ship and you have freedom of choice. You could be on the bridge, watching the helm like a hawk, or you could be with the nice lady, utilizing your hawk-like observational skills ..uh...otherwise....

It's easy to be smug about the choice we would make, but we are all too often very human.....

I presume you are being somewhat tongue in cheek???

As someone once said, the ocean is usually pretty safe. It is the hard stuff around the edges that causes problems. While I wouldn't begrudge a captain the company of a nice lady, there are certain times when I would expect him to be paying attention to his day job. When sailing close inshore is one of those times.

Simularly, I would expect an aircraft pilot to be in control (of the plane), at least during takeoffs and landings.

If you did get pulled under by 'suction' alone and had life-jacket on, I am pretty sure you would bob right back up to the surface. You might need a fresh pair of undies, but I think you would be OK, assuming you didn't drown in the process.

Who, me, tongue in cheek? To be perfectly serious, the conduct of this "captain" certainly looks like an absolutely astonishing dereliction of duty - that should play out in court in due course.

Isn't it interesting that this wreck occurs one hundred years after the [/i]Titanic[i]disaster. You will recall that the captain of that vessel, Edward Smith, perished along with many of the crew while assisting the passengers. And, indeed, it was women and children first.

And that, my friends, is the takehome nugget for maritime survival!

Apparently the rules say there has to be a drill within the first 24 hours. In this cruise, it was scheduled for the next day; the ship had left port earlier on Friday, so for many passengers this wreck happened on their first night on board. So, a bit of unlucky timing there.

There's an article about the tradition on The Guardian.

Accident happened at 9:40pm. Abandon ship given at 10:50. At 2:30am, there were 300 people left. So around 4 hours.

It sounds like a long time to me, especially compared with the 90 seconds allowed to evacuate a jumbo jet, but apparently its normal to take many hours. It took a couple of hours to evacuate the World Trade Centres, and I've read of other cruise ships also taking hours. Obviously conditions here were not ideal; the ship listing meant that half the lifeboats couldn't be used. On the other hand, the ship being in shallow water meant it didn't disappear under.

Early reports implied that the power cut caused the crash rather than vice versa. I am not yet clear who knew what when. The passengers were suspicious very early, and happened to be right, but that doesn't mean much. The crew who reassured them may not have known any better. Did the captain know immediately that the ship was holed?

Although it looks bad for him, the way the company hung him out to dry so quickly, was disconcerting. There's a lot of PR, manoeuvring over possible law-suits, and trial-by-media going on.

The captain, from what I have read so far, has done at least one thing right. He hasn't tried to shift the blame to his crew.