Concordia News: Please Post Here

[Bearded Engineer]

They are sinking the blister tanks. The starboard tank appears to be over half submerged now. That is some fast pumping. I did some quick calculating and estimated they would have to pump over a million gallons into the blister tanks to submerge them.

[glojo]

Hi Uniall,
I think it is a given that Schittino is up to his eyebrows in the Schitt but I can close my eyes and clearly see him on the telephone to the shore based disaster team.

The instant he describes the scene the caller will have kittens.. Late at night and this person is being asked to make a decision with HUGE ramifications.

will that person want to give the master the authority to go ahead and abandon ship (we all accept the master should not require this but in the real World would he be contacting this centre)

My experience of senior management is that they will never make the big decision without conferring with the next person up the ladder so..

would this person start asking the master a number of time wasting questions prior to contacting the next person up the slippery ladder of decision making?

Would the calls all remain in Italy or would they spread across the Atlantic? Would the senior management want their lawyers involved?

Is the clock still ticking?

I have NO sympathy for the master but am I so wrong when I believe that some of the delay might have been down to 'outside interference'

Tonka
When I talk about our Coastguard ordering a master to accept outside help, this would obviously not be a common situation and I have only ever heard it being done when a ship is in danger of being pushed ashore by wind or tide. The ship would be without means of propulsion and unable to anchor and the master would be prevaricating and not wanting to accept the ramifications of accepting outside assistance .

The decision is made shoreside after consultation with the on scene coxswain of the lifeboat and the officer in overall command of the incident who would be based at the local coastguard station.

No doubt you are aware that our coast is covered by volunteers who man lifeboats on an 'on call' basis, the crews all usually have a full time job and down here the coxswain of our local lifeboat is traditionally a full time fisherman. They are however very well trained and highly professional but they would certainly not be able to order the master of a ship to accept a tow-line. That decision is way, way above the pay grade of a mere coxswain of the local life-boat :)

[Uniall]

[quote name='glojo']Hi Uniall,.............


My experience of senior management is that they will never make the big decision without conferring with the next person up the ladder so..
would this person start asking the master a number of time wasting questions prior to contacting the next person up the slippery ladder of decision making?

Would the calls all remain in Italy or would they spread across the Atlantic? Would the senior management want their lawyers involved?

Is the clock still ticking?

The clock is not still ticking on the criminal side, since this happened in Italian waters with an Italian ship under Italian criminal law.

We already know who's been charge. Unless, they learn new evidence that's the defendant roster.

The Civil side could get much bigger and broaderbut with the "Respondent Superior" rule making Costa cruise line (and maybe the parent corporations) liable for the civil damages caused by THEIR employee's actions.

[Mike.Minh]

[quote name='Bearded Engineer']They are sinking the blister tanks. The starboard tank appears to be over half submerged now. That is some fast pumping. I did some quick calculating and estimated they would have to pump over a million gallons into the blister tanks to submerge them.[/QUOTE]

Interesting figure, thanks. I have no proper marine know-how, but wouldn't you rather open valves to let water in, instead of actual pumping? Got to be done of course in a controlled fashion, hence so slow.

I also wonder if the speed of this operation gives us a taste of how long the righting of CC will take eventually.

[glojo]

[quote name='Uniall'][quote name='glojo']Hi Uniall,.............


My experience of senior management is that they will never make the big decision without conferring with the next person up the ladder so..
would this person start asking the master a number of time wasting questions prior to contacting the next person up the slippery ladder of decision making?

Would the calls all remain in Italy or would they spread across the Atlantic? Would the senior management want their lawyers involved?

Is the clock still ticking?

The clock is not still ticking on the criminal side, since this happened in Italian waters with an Italian ship under Italian criminal law.

We already know who's been charge. Unless, they learn new evidence that's the defendant roster.

The Civil side could get much bigger and broaderbut with the "Respondent Superior" rule making Costa cruise line (and maybe the parent corporations) liable for the civil damages caused by THEIR employee's actions.[/quote]
Hi Uni,
Many apologies for the confusing comment.

'Is the clock still ticking' remark.

I am on morphine medication and I guess my imagination far exceeds my ability to type.

Is the clock still ticking.

I joined the Royal Navy alongside my very good friend able seaman Horatio Nelson and when we put to sea we were left to our own devices, we would either sink or swim depending on the decisions we made..... No radio, no senior management monitoring our journey and wanting 24hr a day communication.

I cannot and will not even begin to attempt to defend the conduct of this ship's master but.... Is the clock still ticking

The instant that man contacted the crisis management team he made an awful rod for his own back.

I cannot even begin to imagine the stress this person was under when those alarm bells started to ring.

I cannot even begin to imagine how many heads of department were asking for guidance, asking for decisions.

I cannot begin to imagine how he was assessing the damage and still trying to talk to some 'idiot' who was probably in bed or out socialising but to me his fate was sealed when he decided to carry on with talking on a telephone instead of taking command of an unenviable situation.

When I talked about is the clock still ticking, I was talking about the fact that whilst he was talking on that silly telephone, the ship was in dire straits and needed his full and complete attention... Whilst he was talking shore side that clock was ticking, the ship was taking on water and decisions were needed.

I would like to think lessons will be learnt but in my heart I know that things will not change and ship's owners will always insist on being kept in the loop when 'their property' is at risk.

Is that right??? I say no but to pretend it does not go on is disingenuous

Would a major cruise line employ a master that failed to toe the party line? My thoughts are that publicly they will always claim the master has that final say but behind closed doors??? Will anyone admit to asking him numerous questions all of which were stopping him from doing waht he was employed to do.... Command.... He was the captain of that ship and should have been in control of that awful situation.

I think back to that aircraft that successfully put down on the River Hudson and their use of the radio..

This item was used to declare a mayday. They informed the control tower of what they were about to do and that was it... No further discussions and 100% concentration on the important task of saving the lives of both passengers and crew.

Should that master have delegated the responsibility of contacting the relevant shore-side parties and simply got on with the job of saving lives??? When at sea the master should be left to command and if the employer is not happy with that person then this can be dealt with when the ship is alongside but when at sea this man should stand alongside God and I would suggest that God might well be the passenger and the captain, the master!!!

My sincere apologies for the confusion but thank you for the much appreciated response

Best wishes,
John

[papcx]

I'm no seaman but my common sense tells me this.

The situation on the bridge must have been very hectic and confusing. I wouldn't be bothered phoning my bosses. The ship has hit the shore, there are several compartments flooded (more than the ship can survive) I'd call the abandon ship. What will my bosses do? Sack me for saving lives?

It's pure dumb luck the ship was pushed onto that shelf. If it hadn't we'd be talking about thousands of deaths.

[balf]

It's getting very interesting now. I hope the experts will keep us up to date as to the meaning of what we can see on the web cam.

David.

[Bearded Engineer]

[quote name='Mike.Minh']Interesting figure, thanks. I have no proper marine know-how, but wouldn't you rather open valves to let water in, instead of actual pumping? Got to be done of course in a controlled fashion, hence so slow.

I also wonder if the speed of this operation gives us a taste of how long the righting of CC will take eventually.[/quote]

I believe that by connecting all the compartments on the blisters to a pumping manifold they can pump water in or out and also move it from one compartment to another. This allows them to finely adjust the blister assemble to any angle and position.

[Bearded Engineer]

I looks like they have the blister at about the right angle to move in onto the ship. Edited August 18, 2013 by Bearded Engineer

[glojo]

[quote name='papcx']I'm no seaman but my common sense tells me this.

The situation on the bridge must have been very hectic and confusing. I wouldn't be bothered phoning my bosses. The ship has hit the shore, there are several compartments flooded (more than the ship can survive) I'd call the abandon ship. What will my bosses do? Sack me for saving lives?

It's pure dumb luck the ship was pushed onto that shelf. If it hadn't we'd be talking about thousands of deaths.[/quote]From the comfort of our armchairs and more to the point with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight the decision is a no brainer but..

Rather than me make a complete ass of myself I will ask Uniall for his thoughts on salvage.

We all know that this ship eventually came to rest and did not actually sink. BUT......

What about if the ship was abandoned and remained afloat?

With the benefit of hindsight we are all experts but sadly the reality is that some masters do tend to err on the side of caution and seek authority to give that final command. To highlight this read the link I posted regarding the United Kingdom ordering a master to accept a tow when the ship was in imminent danger of drifting onto rocks.

We all agree this master has a lot of questions to answer but this type of behaviour is not unique and I doubt very much it will be the last example of alleged dereliction of duty (I am trying to be tactful about this person's behaviour)

We all need to wake up and question the size of these huge ships and the 'what if' type scenarios that will happen.

If we do not train for these events then how do we expect them to run smoothly? Launching a lifeboat in sheltered waters in daylight bears no resemblance to trying to launch it in adverse weather conditions at sea, at night and yes this will happen and being critical after the event is simply not good enough, but that is probably for another thread.

[clive and anne]

M30 appears to have reached the wreck, its been a long patient journey.
Moving a few feet then stopping to readjust then another few feet.
Your right MM this is getting us used to the need to be patient when the parbuckle starts, its going to take time.
I hope the Parbuckling Project site is soon going to update.
I wonder if the great cameras giving us the pictures are going to be "speeded up" for the parbuckle.....Please !! Edited August 18, 2013 by clive and anne
additional commemts

[lightman1984]

Nice - thanks to those update posts. I was away for the weekend and couldn't keep up with what's been going on. Still no weekly removal report so I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow to see what's going on.

If I recall correctly I read/heard somewhere along the way that it would take 12 hours, moving the ship about 3 meters per hour in order to parbuckle. Such a long time to prepare for an operation that takes half a day.

[CTH]

The weekly report is now available at giglionews.it

There are 8 photos this week, keep scrolling down for the second set of 4.

No visible change this morning with the blister. It may well be that they are welding it to CC's hull underwater.

[lightman1984]

Looks like everything still targeted to be completed by Sept 4. Not sure if they get the green light to parbuckle ASAP or when that happens.

Should see the blister installation wrap up this week, along with the swinging platform on P6, and linking the port side strand jacks to the underwater platforms.

M30 still seems a bit far away from CC's bow for the actual blister welding/install to be taking place. Not sure if the blister is quite fitted in place yet. Kind of hard to tell with all the support vessels there blocking the view.

[Bearded Engineer]

In the view from the "Traghetto" webcam you can see that the lift cables are still attached and taught so M30 has not released the blister yet.

[balf]

[quote name='Bearded Engineer']In the view from the "Traghetto" webcam you can see that the lift cables are still attached and taught so M30 has not released the blister yet.[/QUOTE]

The cables are not fully vertical. Can this mean that the blister is being held against the ship side. Coud they be welding now?

David.

[Bearded Engineer]

The lifting cables from M30 to the blister have gone slack. They must have the blister secure enough to no longer need support from M30

[lightman1984]

It doesn't seem to me that the blister is welded to the hull. The weekly report seems to indicate the "installation" concludes with the work by M30 (task had 78% complete as of Saturday). Compare that to the sponsons which had tasks for Installation, and then a welding period following installation. Seems very possible that the blister could be fixed to mounting points that have been welded already combined with the pipes through the bow thrusters. Once emptied of water, it's just a giant flotation device and would push up on the hull... so it probably doesn't need a whole lot of welding work - there's just nowhere for it to go.

However, I submit here and now that I know nothing about maritime salvage and recovery work :o

[Bearded Engineer]

[quote name='lightman1984']
However, I submit here and now that I know nothing about maritime salvage and recovery work :o[/quote]

Keep in mind that Titan/Micoperi are also making this up as they go along. You get to do that when you are doing something that has never been done before. ;)

[clive and anne]

Nothing major but perhaps another small piece of our jigsaw.

[URL]http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57599101/grounded-costa-concordia-cruise-ship-is-ready-to-roll-literally/[/URL]

[clive and anne]

Also good to see from the report I have just posted that they are still concerned to recover the bodies of the two missing people and also they seem to have plans to return the contents of the cabin safes to passengers.

[Mike.Minh]

In previous progress reports we saw some of the GANTT diagrams (bar charts w timeline) became almost unreadable.

This could have been an error by importing from the project management software in a wrong low resolution. But I now also see that the progress reports come from very different systems. I found MS Word, Ghostscript, and also, for the very last report, it was generated at 2:24am, in the middle of a night-shift on a brand spanking new Apple Mac.

You must all have been itching to know this :)

The report says that a unit called ROC will go back onto CC after blister inst. What might ROC stand for?

[SomeBeach]

[quote name='Mike.Minh']

The report says that a unit called ROC will go back onto CC after blister inst. What might ROC stand for?[/quote]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=3][COLOR=blue]Hhmmm. :confused: Maybe some sort of remote ocean camera. [/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]
[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=3][COLOR=#0000ff]That's a wild guess but I think it's a remote something. :D[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT]

[MorganMars]

Haven't been posting, but I do come and read. Just came across this link tonight and thought I would share. My apologies if it has already been posted.

[URL]http://heiwaco.tripod.com/news8.htm[/URL]

Scroll down to skip the stuff about Schettino and there are some interesting graphics and speculation that the parbuckling may fail.

[URL]http://heiwaco.tripod.com/news811.htm[/URL]

I have only skimmed the site, so I am hoping that others with more time can read it and report.

Thanks in advance,
MorganMars

[luisrp]

I spent quite a bit looking a both pages. The physics make sense but they make way too many assumptions of things they admit don't know. They also assume the salvage company doesn't know a how to do their job or is not considering a lot of variables. For a job this complex, nothing is left to chance, so I think the author of the web page is smoking something. One of the pages is mostly conspiration theories involving the design of the ship (and its four other sisters ships which I assume also include Carnival Splendor) and their seaworthiness and that Italian government agencies are not willing to stop Carnival/Costa from sailing these ships.