Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

[ursus arctos]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Liq can speak for himself, but the emigration of talented individuals who believe that they simply can't get ahead in a system where who you know is much more important than what you know (and where the products of that system hold onto positions into their 80s) is a very significant problem for contemporary Italy.

[ursus arctos]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

And so he did.

[wingco]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Bored, can I suggest that, if you haven't already, you read The Dark Heart Of Italy by Tobias Jones? A very good primer on a very extensive topic.

[Bored Of Education]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Regardless of his abilities as a seafarer, ship commander or what have, what is clear is that he was not capable of handling the responsibilities of his position. Now that isn't uniqie toItaly or Italians, but it is (or at least looks to be) an example of someone being promoted way beyond where they should be, a serious problem in Italian society (clientelism, who you know etc).

See, this incident strikes me as similar to, for instance, drunk airline pilots in that they are people in responsible jobs arrogantly thinking that they can take the piss in their job hence it being difficult for me to connect this to a national Italian problem, of which I was not that aware.

Don't try and compare to anything in Britain, as it is just not the same.

Well, I wouldn't, would I. Having said that, there is, of course, many examples of woefully irresponsible or inadequately qualified people being promoted into power in Britain, all the way from boards of school governors and local councils to being the Minister of Education

[Bored Of Education]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Bored, can I suggest that, if you haven't already, you read The Dark Heart Of Italy by Tobias Jones? A very good primer on a very extensive topic.

A-ha, I have it in the big pile of "non-education books that I really must read"

[Sean of the Shed]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Meanwhile I would recommend that you don't read anything on the subject by Toby Young, who seems to think that it is typical Italian behaviour to be a spineless coward concerned only with your own safety whilst any British captain would have bravely gone down with his ship, probably saluting the flag as he sank beneath the waves. The only thing missing from his piece are comments about the amount of reverse gears on an Italian tank and the removal of the red and green bands from their flag.

[Sean of the Shed]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Claiming he just tripped and fell into a lifeboat is making himself look ridiculous. If his lawyer was remotely competent he would have taken away from all the focus and told him to not say a word. he's burying himself and the owners of the ship are filling in the hole behind him. They are allowing him to scapegoat himself and hoping this will divert attention away from the fact that they promoted an incompetent show-off to captain their flagship and seem to have no policy on ship safety and evacuation procedure.

[ursus arctos]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

All very true.

Which makes someone steeped in the Italian passion for conspiracy theories to wonder if there is some kind of deal in place for him to take the fall.

[Sean of the Shed]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Every utterance the Captain has made so far appears to be him feebly trying to cover his own arse rather than that of the company. He seems to be trying to talk up and justify his own involvement, but hasn't mentioned anything about company procedure or evacuation drill.
If there was any kind of plan for evacuation then you could allow for one person bottling and jumping ship, but he had both his second and third in command in the lifeboat beside him whilst large numbers of passengers were still trying to evacuate. If there had been any kind of training then you would expect a senior officer to be co-ordinating things instead of them all doing a runner like a bunch of joyriders who have just totalled the car they've nicked. All this points to a crew who had no concept of an evacuation procedure and no idea how to deal with an emergency.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Not much to pick on the comments by the Italian cognoscenti, the captain is a perfect example of how to get ahead in Italian society (charm and knowing the right people), something a lot of Italians admit to.

However, the capacity for supporting someone who commited something atrocious because he is nice local lad is far from unique to the country or even particularly more develloped in Italy than in other countries, in my opinion.

[Paul S]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

All this points to a crew who had no concept of an evacuation procedure and no idea how to deal with an emergency.

I beg to differ Sean of the Shed.

Before ships are accepted into traffic they have to prove their evacuation proecdures work. This normally involves getting a load of squaddies to leap to the muster station when the alarm sounds, where they are met with a fully trained crew who issue life jackets and launch lifeboats. Nobody ever tries to do it with elderly people on holiday who are a bit tipsy, merry party goers and pissed up families. The results then along with a lurch in the ship are very different.

Any safety procedure works with a well trained crew, be it road, rail, sea or air. Add in uncertainty, fear, people looking for their families, shock, drunkeness and a a basic survival instinct which says "me first" along with a host of other things and they fall apart at the seams.

[Sean of the Shed]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Well this did fall apart at the seams, so the only conclusion that can be made is that they were not well trained, rather just trained enough to get through the test. Either that or they were not rigorously tested in the first place. I'd be inclined to believe that the testing procedure is just as likely to be as lapsed and inept as the safety procedure it is supposed to be testing.
I wouldn't expect everyone to hold their nerve in a real life situation, but for every senior member of the crew to be aboard the same lifeboat sailing away from an evacuating ship seems to indicate a complete lack of care and resposibility, something that should be second nature to a well trained crew member.
Whilst they were busy looking after themselves, one of the ship's musicians, a Hungarian violinist, was lost after he helped scared children with their life jackets before returning to his cabin for his violin.

[linus]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Moonlight shadow wrote:

Not much to pick on the comments by the Italian cognoscenti, the captain is a perfect example of how to get ahead in Italian society (charm and knowing the right people), something a lot of Italians admit to.

However, the capacity for supporting someone who commited something atrocious because he is nice local lad is far from unique to the country or even particularly more develloped in Italy than in other countries, in my opinion.

The kind of tribalism exhibited by his village is in fact pretty unique, at least by European standards, something that even the hardcore tiffosis of this board would acknowledge (see quote below).

ad hoc wrote:

Er Liquidatore wrote:

Bored, it's a) a seemingly incompetent cocky coward being in a position of huge responsibility, and b) the way his home town has rallied around him, regardless of his guilt (which is pretty fucking clear, from where I'm standing). Presumably because he was nice to his mum and used buy sweets from the local shop

And in Linus's case you also have to bear in mind that he has a long standing history of Italo-phobia. Linus on the subject of Italy is almost as wild eyed and ranting as me on Arsenal and/or cheese.

I'll remember not to bring this to your next party then...

My italophobia is pretty much confined to transalpine football culture. In fact, some of my best friends are Italian.

[trimster]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Even if the death toll is 40-odd, that is still remarkably low considering the incompotence of the captain, poorly trained crew, the short period of time in which it took the ship to capsize, etc.

Cruise ship companies do many things to try and maximise their profits, and cutting corners on passenger safety and security is only one of them.

Captain Smith of the Titanic was also accused of being a "show off"... he used to sail his liners into harbors at top speed, and wasn't interested in altering the Titanic's course for any icebergs, as he wanted to set speed records. Looks like nothing has been learnt in 100 years.

[Jimbags]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

These new giant cruise ships look damn ugly. Floating apartment buildings.

[trimster]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Jimbags wrote:

These new giant cruise ships look damn ugly. Floating apartment buildings.

Yeah, they don't look seaworthy. Same with those modern cargo vessels that stack towering piles of containers on their decks.

What has happened to those thousands of years worth of knowledge of the sea and ship design, so painfully acquired by mankind? Abandoned, along with common sense, in the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

[Paul S]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

In fact, some of my best friends are Italian.

Some of my best friends are black.

[Bored Of Education]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Not much to pick on the comments by the Italian cognoscenti, the captain is a perfect example of how to get ahead in Italian society (charm and knowing the right people), something a lot of Italians admit to.

Maybe this is what I have missed in the reporting of this, that the captain was not fit for the job and got where he did through nepotism, as opposed to my previous example of pilots who are perfectly qualified but take risks through arrogance (or alcoholism, I suppose)

However, the capacity for supporting someone who commited something atrocious because he is nice local lad is far from unique to the country or even particularly more develloped in Italy than in other countries, in my opinion.

The fact that the village that is sticking up for him is so small does suggest that they are talking from genuine experience of the guy rather than a large town sticking up for him only due to parochial defensiveness.

Nationally, the Italian press have been damning towards him and talk of Italy itself having to apologise and being embarrassed

[Er Liquidatore]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Claiming he just tripped and fell into a lifeboat is making himself look ridiculous. If his lawyer was remotely competent he would have taken away from all the focus and told him to not say a word. he's burying himself and the owners of the ship are filling in the hole behind him. They are allowing him to scapegoat himself and hoping this will divert attention away from the fact that they promoted an incompetent show-off to captain their flagship and seem to have no policy on ship safety and evacuation procedure.

Actually a friend of mine used to translate their safety documents for them, and she says that their procedures were bang on the button, written down. Whether they were implemented is anotehr thing, of course.

[Eggchaser]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

trimster wrote:

Even if the death toll is 40-odd, that is still remarkably low considering the incompotence of the captain, poorly trained crew, the short period of time in which it took the ship to capsize, etc.

They had the guy who co-ordinated the rescue efforts on the Herald of Free Enterprise noted that the death toll on this capsize was only 1% of the crew and passengers whereas it was 40% for those poor bastards on the RORO. Seeing that thing on its side only telly scared the shit out of me, it was the first disaster that really impacted on me as I was old enought to understand properly understand it , especially as we took a lot of holidays in France and had been on those types of ships a few times before.

[WOM]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

trimster wrote:

Jimbags wrote:

These new giant cruise ships look damn ugly. Floating apartment buildings.

Yeah, they don't look seaworthy. Same with those modern cargo vessels that stack towering piles of containers on their decks.

What has happened to those thousands of years worth of knowledge of the sea and ship design, so painfully acquired by mankind? Abandoned, along with common sense, in the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

Not a bad tirade, but what's it to do with this? Whether they look seaworthy or like apartments or that people like to make money is neither here nor there. This ship was crashed into a rock by a hot-dogging captain who then waited almost an hour before following procedures and then abandoning ship. No amount of good design is going to mitigate for all of that.

[matt j]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Wow:

http://www.digitalglobe.com/sites/default/files/italy_giglio_jan17_2012_0.jpg

[Paul S]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Some of my friends are retired merchant seafarers.

[linus]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

Some of my friends don't get irony.

[NickSTFU]

Nothing on the Italian cruise ship, then?

I don’t have any friends.

Anyway one thing I noticed looking at the pictures of the vessel is that the great big gash where it hit the rocks is exposed. Now I’d have thought that damage would have been underwater as that side of the ship (at the least the affected compartments) would have been flooded.

From personal experience gained during a 4month loan service on HMS Invincible, I believe that other compartments on the opposite side would be deliberately flooded to balance the vessel out to try and keep it afloat.

So I wonder if the crew over compensated and the bloody thing keeled over like the top heavy unstable piece of engineering it appears to be.

Anyway most unpleasant all round.