Comments on: Thoughts on Costa Concordia

By: Jeff Wagg

Jeff Wagg — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 04:35:38 +0000

Ahh, sorry Chip, I didn’t see this until just now. It was apparently something like 90 minutes, which is a bit shocking. From what I’ve read, lifeboats operate until there is a 20°-30° list, and it seems that happened gradually and then there was a finally shudder and it went to 60° pretty quickly.

The captain was trying to beach the ship to save the ship and the passengers, but unfortunately picked a spot where the grounding just made the ship roll more. I’m not sure I can fault him for that as the instinct was pretty good, but if he let the vessel sink, it might have stayed level longer allowing for a more orderly evacuation.

Or, I could be completely wrong and the damage was so severe that capsizing was inevitable.

By: Chip

Chip — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 02:18:43 +0000

Thanks Jeff. Some really good info. But I am curious about the timeline-and hearing conflicting reports. Short of being torpedoed, ships don’t sink or roll over in just a few minutes. I’d think once it were clear that that serious, perhaps fatal, damage had been done there would be time to get lifeboats loaded and away before the list became so severe to preclude launch. Any idea how long it was from initial impact to the point when lifeboats could no longer be used?

By: Brandon K. Thorp

Brandon K. Thorp — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 21:03:10 +0000

Thanks, Jeff. Excellent reading.