While we're talking about maritime traditions, some say the Costa Concordia was doomed from the start of her service. When the ship was launched, the ceremonial bottle of champagne swung over on a rope to smash into the bow of the ship simply bounced off the hull instead. A very bad omen to seafarers.

Patience, my friend, patience. I expect that option will be explored by his lawyers at some point...!

"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."

It's important to make sure that the wine bottle is emptied.
Especially in the company of an attractive lady.
You don't want to waste a fine red wine.
That would be so un-Italian.

HAHAHAHAHA !!!

Pete2

There is a new article "Costa Concordia: the inside story of the night of Friday, January 13" which has some interesting information.

While I have yet to see a complete, concise timeline, it would appear that things went bad very fast. The initial damage seems to have occured at about 9:40 pm. According to the Telegraph article above, people felt a strong impact, and the lights went out quickly.

The Third Officer was in his cabin, and when he opened his door there was already water in the passageway. He went immediately to the engine room, which was already beginning to flood. “Within 15 minutes, the engine room told the bridge that there was nothing to be done,” he said. “The situation was beyond repair.” By 9:45 pm the ship had a 7 degree list.

Assuming this is a reasonably accurate timeline, the delays by the captain in calling for assistance, telling people all was well, and giving the abandon ship order is unfathomable.

One also wonders why the ships watertight bulkheads didn't seem to slow the flooding, or control it entirely. The hull damage visible in the phots that have been published, while severe, does not seem to have gone the length of the ship. I would speculate that either there is more hull damage than has been visible, or some or all of the bulkhead hatches were never closed.

"Assuming this is a reasonably accurate timeline, the delays by the captain in calling for assistance, telling people all was well, and giving the abandon ship order is unfathomable."

Indeed ... it is complete incompetence.
It reflects deep denial about what was going on.
Surely if there was major water intrusion in the engine room and the lower decks - the correct thing to do was to tell passengers to put on life jackets and to go to emergency stations immediately. And the crew should have prepared the lifeboats immediately.

Numerous accounts showing that passengers were first told that there was no serious problem - show unforgiveable actions by the captain and crew.

Pete2

Interesting article about the paralyzing effects of panic as a possible explanation for the the captain's behavior.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnew...tain-panic.html

Thanks for the refeence, but i can't say I was impressed - typical pop psychology blather....

Here are some possible explanations for the captain's behavior:

1. Incompetence - Bad decision from information available
2. Negligence - Hoped everything was OK rather than acting on information
3. Bad information from crew
4. Paralyzed by fear
5. Flawed character for leadership (see above)
6. Judgement clouded by alcohol
7. Distracted by a pretty woman
8. Arrogance - Thought he had situation under control
9. He didn't do anything wrong. We are misinterpreting available information/speculation/etc
10. Costa management/ownership was aware of this behavior (show boating with close runs to islands) from other captains and allowed it to continue.

Any others? Any votes?

My speculation is combination of the above except 3 & 9.

Really? Do you think he forgot his ship had a black box?

On gcaptain.com is a video showing the final movements of the Costa Concordia, together with a commentary by a different captain (Konrad).

Briefly: the engine room was flooded quickly after the first impact and they lost power to the main propeller, so the captain is controlling the ship with rudder only. He aims for the port but can't make it. He turns the ship sideways with the rudder which slows it more quickly until it is virtually stopped. Then he is able to use the bow thrusters (on emergency power - and they only work at low speed) to turn it right around. At that point the commentary speculates that the ship was taken by wind and current until it ran aground.

It seems to me that without power, there wasn't a lot of opportunity to do anything, never mind attempt to cover his A**. I gather also it is not easy to launch lifeboats from a ship under way, so it makes sense to delay abandon ship until it was stopped. I gather also that the final running aground at an angle, and subsequent listing, was a bad thing, but if the current or wind took it and he had no power, he might not have had much choice about that. It seems to me that being aground at least meant the ship didn't sink below the surface, so they had as long as they needed to evacuate.

Even if you can't launch lifeboats until the ship slows down, you don't tell the passengers that "it's just a problem with the generator and to remain calm." You get them into PFD's & to lifeboat stations PDQ.