Originally Posted By: GarlyDog
But given the alternative of waiting on a rolling/sinking ship, with no prospect of lifeboat rescue, I probably would have reluctantly opted for the water, given close proximity to shore.

Actually, if shore--and a coastal town/village--was so close by like the Costa Concordia case, I think waiting for rescue onboard the ship would maximize your survival chances even if the ship were slowly sinking/listing. If things were happening much faster--including a fast moving onboard fire--well, then things get complicated in a hurry and getting into the water could very well be the safest place.

Remember that with such massive cruise liners nowadays, they are designed so that the first/best option in a shipboard emergency is to use the ship itself as the lifeboat. If they can, they want to keep everyone onboard because the overall risk and difficulty in moving that many people will "likely" result in more injuries and deaths--in general--than if they simply stayed on the ship.

One thing I've been curious about is whether the Costa Concordia would have turned on its side if it had been in deeper water? I thought that normally, a hull breach and the arrangement of the watertight compartments shouldn't cause the ship to turn dramatically on its side like that. So maybe the shape of the bottom of the hull pressing on the shallow reef is what pushed it over? I have no idea, but I was just wondering if proximity to shore was actually unlucky in this case because it flipped the ship and forced everyone to abandon ship instead of staying onboard? Just some idle conjecture.