Comments on: The cruise industry’s rough sail

By: Simsfmly

Simsfmly — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 18:35:38 +0000

“On the surface, the problem was nothing more than human error. The captain seems to have sailed too close to land, breaking the rules and overruling the technology.”

But no, we can’t leave it at that. Nope. Need more regulations. Need more government interference. Those damn greedy cruise lines. We need to fill our print space with reasons the cruise industry should be turned inside out.

This all happened because of greedy businesses wanting to make more money. What a crock.

Put in one regulation: to over ride the computer’s navigation system, there needs to be a littany of steps so stringent, no one would dare do it. Period.

By: rmkraussr

rmkraussr — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:24:58 +0000

mastermind Edward Hadas should apply for a job with Carnival . . . he writes as if he were on a first-name basis with the owner.

r m kraus/akron

By: paintcan

paintcan — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:52:05 +0000

They could have used double hull construction but that doesn’t seem to be the case with the Costa Concordia. I understand that oil tankers use double hulls but there is a cost in terms of lost interior usable volume.

What still amazes me is – imagine trying to tip a 15-story building over and have it stand on one edge for as long as this ship has been in that semi-buoyant position. It is a very strong building with a watertight bottom and sides. Even the windows – which are under some increased pressure from trapped air, are able to withstand the pressure of the weight of the ship that is still not fully resting on the bottom – according to a diagram I saw in the BBC site. Apparently it is still vulnerable to wind and waves that could cause it to move further out and sink deeper.

But bigger is better and safer on the open seas. I don’t think any naval architects would argue with that?

I imagine the number of little boats and smaller craft that go down is too long to try to list. There seems to be at least one or two a year with enormous loss of life. It seems to happen often in the Far East and S.E. Asia.

BTW – No one seems to have asked the captain what he was doing on shore and if he may have been trying to coordinate rescue operations from there?

In forty feet of water the ship could have sunk to the bottom and sat flat on it bottom and still had about ten stories above water. Unfortunately the rock that it scraped and can be seen in some photos still embedded in the hull, caused the ship to tip away from the rip and that seems to have caused it to flood first on the side opposite the gash.

By: HillClimber

HillClimber — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:55:57 +0000

The Cruise Industry is the result of Royal Caribbean’s Edwin Stephan who started the line in 1969 with three warm weather cruising ships – and unlike Arison, grounded none of them on their inaugural sailing from the Port of Miami. There are huge differences in how one company will be run versus another, and Carnival seems always to be on the cheap. Do you really think K-Mart and Nordstrom’s carry the same goods just because they are both retail outlets? In this case, it is obvious that the intent to sail where they were was intentional – GPS can now be used to dock ships and hold them in place. You don’t drift hundreds of feet “by accident” in today’s world.

By: matthewslyman

matthewslyman — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:40:16 +0000

Here’s the BBC article I was referring to (look in the section entitled, “Nautical charts”):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-1 6604154

By: matthewslyman

matthewslyman — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:30:21 +0000

One of the most interesting questions raised by this disaster, from my perspective, is the resolution of the navigation charts being used by Captain Schettino. Schettino alleges that the rock his ship struck was not marked on his navigation charts. A BBC article mentioned that certain popular navigation charts are of insufficient spatial resolution to include details like that rocky outcrop, and that they are therefore not recommended for purposes of in-shore navigation: the maps are wholly unsuitable for use in shallow depths, where the margins of error are small, or in volcanic terrain, where there can be sudden changes in depth over a very small lateral distance. If the allegation is true, this of course begs the question… How is it that Schettino was not aware of this limitation in his navigation charts? How is it that he came to trust the charts so much that he was willing to take risks that were not warranted, based on the information he had?

In the modern world, and in the modern economy in general; we are increasingly coming to rely upon computerised machinery (including in this definition, software). Few people really understand how that machinery works, or take the time to acquaint themselves with its limitations; which are typically less obvious than they would be in the case of a physical printed map that does not automatically zoom in-and-out. We are being insulated within a bubble of beautiful user-interfaces that lull us into a false sense of security.

Industries like air travel, large shipping and the military serve to highlight the dangers of over-reliance on fallible technology, as their periodic brushes with large-scale life-and-death situations are hard to ignore or conceal. Other industries such as banking are equally flawed, yet they have not received the same rigorous treatment.

Any business that wants to succeed should take a good look at this subject!

* Is the computer software really fit-for-purpose?
* What are its limitations?
* How well are staff acquainted with the fundamental strengths, limitations and competitive advantages of their tools?