At least some policies from some insurers will do this.

More info and several remarkable and large high-res photos at this link below. Also a couple videos:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...passengers.html


"...was sailing just 300 yards from the island’s rocky coast when it should have been at least four miles out to sea."

Oh, I just LOVE the caption to this picture:

caption: Capsizing: Panicked passengers wearing life-jackets assemble to escape from the ship after it ran on to rocks

Looks like a calm and composed bunch to me. Very un-panickly, if you ask me... but that's typical. People panick FAR LESS than the media will have us believe.

The accusations made in that article are stunning.

Thanks for the link. One of the pictures is especially poignant. Someone really should rearrange and straighten out those deck chairs.....

So far in life I just haven't been that interested in vacationing on a cruise ship. Did look into some Windjammer cruises once upon a time but that's a whole different experience.

http://www.windjammercruises.com/

This Italian disaster wouldn't make me less likely to go on a cruise but I'd surely do more research into a cruise line's safety record and practices. As important, I'd do what we do on ETS after disasters happen and consider what items and strategies I could reasonably deploy in certain situations (power outage, capsizing).

This disaster will make me more more cognizant of safety, at least for awhile, on any size boat. Most of my big boat experience has been Greek ferries in the Aegean (one of which was especially creepy because it listed the entire time -- as if the vehicles were not evenly loaded -- and for hours we watched the railing in relation to the horizon with considerable trepidation) and a boat that took me and some others on a work-related excursion in the Panama Canal (a decade ago and I had given zero thought before or during to safety and EDC).

My most recent commercial vessel experience was a ferry from Ocracoke Island, NC to Hatteras Island. That was just a few months ago. If we'd had to abandon ship on that excursion I'd have had two big dogs to get into the lifeboat with.

But if it had simply been a mechanical malfunction that left us drifting we'd have been in pretty good shape because I had my Honda Element there and it is extremely well outfitted with gear and food for a couple days.

What's going to be most interesting to me as the Italian disaster investigation unfolds is the Captain's actions and the crew's reactions which may have led to the wreck and which affected the evacuation. I'm wondering if this is all due to the recklessness and hubris of this one captain or if there is a culture in that cruise line that had failed to put passenger safety #1.

We'll see. Meanwhile and possibly for the rest of his life, that captain is going to experience the hell of infamy.

Any time you are on a boat, there should be a safety orientation and something equivalent to a life boat drill. If one is going on a vacation cruise, there is something fundamentally dissonant about drilling with life boats and preparing for disasters; after all, as Martin points out, they are rather rare. So I am not surprised that such procedures would not have been emphasized on this cruise ship. But consider, when was the last time you took a commercial flight and the crew skipped the bit about the seat belts and the oxygen tube and exit procedures....

Most of my work on the water has been on National Park Service vessels, working boats which are definitely not cruise liners. There has always been a safety orientation, pointing out where the PFDs are available and where the life rafts are located. After all, the boat is small and the ocean is big.

Video of the ship showing off before the crash. It was in impressive sight all lit up at night:

http://gcaptain.com/back-soon/load.html?37739

It is looking worse and worse for the captain. I've read elsewhere that the 1st officer is also under arrest.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/17/us-italy-ship-idUSTRE80D08220120117

"Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea, but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Dammit, go back on board!" one coastguard says.

Speaking by radio from a lifeboat, Schettino pleads: "Do you realize that it is dark and we can't see anything?"

The coastguard shouts back: "So, what do you want to do, to go home, Schettino?! It's dark and you want to go home? Go to the bow of the ship where the ladder is and tell me what needs to be done, how many people there are, and what they need! Now!"


The alarm was raised not by an SOS from the ship but mobile phone calls from passengers on board to Italian police on the mainland.

Wow ... that's amazing stuff.

I guess that captain wasn't the "last man to go down with the ship". That behavior is really going to hurt him in court.

The statements from the Coast Guard are seriously harsh.
Lucky they didn't have a gun in their hands.
Hahahaha !!!

Pete2