VOICES FROM COSTA CONCORDIA (1)

Captain Michael Lloyd, RD**, MNM, CMMar, FNI, RNR.

? A commander should be able to hold his ship and everything on board of her in the hollow of his hand, as it were. But with the modern foolish trust in material, and with those floating hotels, this has become impossible. A man may do his best, but he cannot succeed in a task which from greed, or more likely from sheer stupidity, has been made too great for anybody’s strength?. 

Joseph Conrad, “Some Reflections on the Loss of the Titanic” 1912

The Costa Concordia affair still troubles many in the marine industry owing to the way it was dealt with by the Italian Authorities and the behaviour of the Company, Costa Crociere. S.P.A, and the owning group, Carnival Cruises.

The question of the abandonment of Captain Schettino by his company within 24 hours of the incident was in itself strange as initially they had said that they would stand by him, and indeed their legal representative had initially supported and debriefed him while on the island of Giglio. Then came the orders from Carnival Cruises and he was on his own. He was not a member of the Italian Seafarer’s Union although they initially offered their help but he refused this thinking that he had his company behind him. When his company withdrew their support, the Italian union did not continue their offer.

The Italian Seafarer’s Union was in a difficult position owing to their very close connections with the owning company, close enough in fact to request the ITF to refrain from comment which could then explain why this organisation made no comments regarding the failure of the Italian courts to recognise the ISM Code, stating clearly the responsibilities of the Company, and the outrageous plea bargain agreement made by the courts with Costa Crociere, which exonerated the whole group from any future charges for a payment of one million euros.

On the surface, it may appear rough but appropriate justice for the Captain as initially, with the statement by the company that they knew nothing about such close approaches and that the Captain was acting on his own without any authority from the Company, this was the media approach that we, the public, accepted. Regrettably, this was not true. 

Pierluigi Foschi, chief executive of Costa Cruises, had condemned Captain Schettino’s action the night of the accident, but he told an Italian Senate committee, during questioning, that carefully planned“touristic navigation”was “accepted by laws and it enriches the cruisepackage. It helps drives business,” he said. “We do it because it is desired by passengers and we are competing on the world market.”

In other words, the Captain was quite right, the Company knew of these close approaches and condoned them. This was not the only company to condone such ‘tourist navigation’ as the picture below confirms.

‘cruise ship Seven Seas Voyager of the American company RSSC. “bowing” to the Faraglioni rocks off the island of Capri’

The ship regularly made such diversions for passengers amusement. In court at Grosetto,Simone Canessa, the ships navigating officer, said a former captain employed by the ship's owner, and captain Shettino's mentor, Mario Palombo, , had successfully sailed 100 metres from the island's coast in a different ship in 2005.

Nor was this the first accident in this Company resulting from this style of navigation.In June 2005, the Italian news media “Libero Quotidiano” reported about a near-sinking accident involving the cruise ship Costa Fortuna. The vessel was navigating along Italy’s western coast, passing by Capri island. During that voyage, the ship carried ~3500 people (passengers and crew) aboard.

According to the media source, the vessel performed a “salute” - cruising into the shallow waters. Until the Concordia disaster, this was an unofficial tradition on Costa ships – to perform sail-bys – just to entertain their passengers.

During that particular “salute”, the Fortuna ship ruptured its hull on the rocks off Capri and started to take on water. The crew used the water pumps at max to keep the ship from sinking. The vessel was able to move to the next call port Palermo Sicily, where the hole in the hull was repaired overnight. A photographer on board and in the employ of the Company took photographs of the damage but these were confiscated by the Company. Neither the Captain or Company reported this accident to the Italian maritime authorities (including Italy’s Coast Guard). The only thing that Costa Crociere reported on that voyage was a rise in the main engine’s temperature. They later claimed that the ship had hit a whale.

So we have a situation where the captains regularly made such tourist navigation close to Giglio Island and other places with the company’s knowledge and indeed, encouragement. One previous ‘tourist’ grounding should have been a lesson but was not, probably because it was not reported. The question we must consider then is why, knowing this, was the Captain abandoned by his Company; why one person was found completely to blame completely ignoring the ISM code and the complicity of the Company in this tourist navigation, and why the silence from all the organisations purporting to care for the human rights of seafarers and safety at sea and who also had access to the truth?