The Titanic of our time: what the famous Costa Concordia looks like now. photo. The most expensive operation in history: Lifting the Costa Concordia Costa Concordia now

On the night of January 13-14, 2012, the giant cruise ship Costa Concordia crashed into the Mediterranean Sea near the Italian island of Giglio in Tuscany. There were 4,200 people on board. For some, what happened was reminiscent of the famous Titanic, which sank almost exactly 100 years earlier, on the night of April 13-14, 1912.

The captain of the cruise ship stated that the liner encountered rocks that were not marked on the navigation map, as a result of which it was holed. Unfortunately, not everyone managed to escape that night; several people died.

It is surprising that the “modern Titanic” also did not have enough lifeboats for all the passengers. In addition, the crew was unable to launch them correctly so that they did not fall upside down or at an angle, causing them to quickly take on water. Some people, who were unable to wait for rescue, decided to take matters into their own hands and swim to the shore.

This is how one of the 10 largest cruise ships in the world crashed, which gradually sank deeper and deeper into the water until it sank to the very bottom. Only he did not lie there for long, since it was decided to pull the 300-meter giant ashore.

Photographer from Germany Jonathan Danko Kielkowski was able to get inside the man who returned from depths of the sea ship and take these amazing, rare pictures for us.

When the liner emerged from the water, it looked like this.

All the numerous rooms of the Costa Concordia were in complete destruction, as if the ship had been at the bottom for decades.

Costa Concordia is the largest shipwreck in history.

The construction of the ship, which received serial number 6122, was carried out by the Italian shipyard Fincantieri for three years, and on September 2, 2005 it was launched for the first time. As expected by tradition, the “newborn” ship was going to be “christened” by breaking a bottle of champagne on the side. However, the bottle did not break, and this is a very bad omen for the ship.

Experts investigating the crash were perplexed as to why the ship decided to deviate from its usual route and came so dangerously close to the shore.

Explaining this fact, the captain of the liner, Francesco Schettino, admitted that on the day of the tragedy he went to the shore to greet the former captain, who lived on Giglio.

Territory cruise ship was huge. On 15 decks there were 4 swimming pools, 1450 cabins, 5 restaurants, a casino, a 2000 square meter fitness center and other entertainment.

The total damage is estimated at 1.5 billion euros.

To raise the Costa Concordia, the shipowner company also had to pay a considerable amount, which, according to media reports, should have been at least 600 million euros.

One of the cabins of a ship raised from the sea.

Destroyed concert hall.

The liner Costa Concordia holds a sad record: it is the largest passenger ship ever lost in a shipwreck. We have already talked about the largest seven-masted schooner in history, the Thomas Lawson () and about the mystical prediction of its fate.

The schooner sank on Friday the 13th, and one of the novels written by the millionaire Thomas Lawson, whose name she bore, was called Friday the Thirteenth. So, the Costa Concordia also sank on Friday and also on the 13th!

The cruise liner Costa Concordia was built at the Italian shipyard Fincantieri in Sestri Ponente (a suburb of Geno) in 2006 by order of the company Costa Crociere. At that time, in the world ranking it was the 10th largest passenger ship and Costa's largest. Costa Concordia became the lead ship in a series of six units.

Costa Concordia had 13 decks; the maximum length of the vessel was 290.2 m, width - 35.5 m, draft - 8.2 m, gross tonnage - 114,147 brt. Combined diesel-electric power point included 6 diesel generators with a total capacity of 102,780 hp. and two electric motors with a capacity of 21 MW. The maximum speed was 23 knots, operational speed was 19.6 knots.

One and a half thousand comfortable cabins of different classes (with an area from 16.7 to 44.8 sq.m.) could accommodate 3,780 passengers. All cabins were equipped with TV, telephone, air conditioning, bathroom and toilet. In addition, there were 14 elevators, 4 swimming pools, 5 restaurants, 13 bars, a theater, a two-level fitness center, a casino, and a Formula 1 simulator. The ship's own crew numbered 1,100 people.

The Costa Concordia set off on its maiden voyage on July 14, 2006 and was in operation for several years. cruise lines V Western Mediterranean. On the evening of January 13, 2012, the ship left the port of Civittavecchia heading to Savona. It was a regular cruise "7 nights of winter Mediterranean Sea" At approximately 21:30, in the area of ​​​​the island of Giglio, when most of the passengers were having dinner in a restaurant, the liner hits a stone reef on its left side and receives an underwater hole 53 m long (from the 52nd frame to the 125th). Five compartments, from the third to the eighth, quickly fill with water, the main engines stop. The Costa Concordia manages to coast a little more than a kilometer and turns its nose towards the harbor of Giglio. Then, under the influence of the wind, she drifts and at about 10 o'clock in the evening runs aground in the immediate vicinity of the coast. The ship, designed to maintain buoyancy only when two compartments are flooded, begins to sink with a list to starboard.

The plane crash seemed inexplicable. Everyone's bewilderment can be understood: the Costa Concordia sailed past the island of Giglio once a week, that is, 52 times a year, and how did it manage to hit a stone reef? Why did the liner deviate from its course by 3-4 miles?

Subsequently, the captain of the cruise ship, Francesco Schettino, admitted that he decided to bring the ship closer to the island of Giglio and greet the former captain of the Costa Concordia, his good friend, who lived there. He had done this several times on previous voyages, but on that ill-fated Friday he hesitated with the turn, and the liner crashed into the side of the rocks. The court found this version to be the most likely, although Schettino later changed his testimony. In particular, he claimed that he was forced to change course by a Carnival manager, but this claim was not supported by the facts.

At the time of the disaster, there were 3,216 passengers from 62 countries and 1,023 crew members on board. The passengers included 108 Russians, 45 citizens of Ukraine, 7 citizens of Moldova, 3 of Kazakhstan and 3 of Belarus. In addition, three of our compatriots were members of the airliner’s crew.

The rescue operation was organized extremely poorly. Instead of immediately beginning the evacuation of passengers, the captain of the liner was silent for 15 minutes, and then announced to the passengers that the ship had only minor problems with the generator. It was only almost an hour after the accident, when the ship tilted 30 degrees, that the emergency alarm sounded. The loading of people into the boats was accompanied by panic and stampede. Only the proximity of the coast made it possible to avoid huge amount victims.

Captain Schettino, according to investigators, was one of the first to leave the ship without sending a distress signal. The coast guard learned about the crash of the liner late and joined in the evacuation of people only late at night. The active phase of the rescue operation continued until the morning. Some passengers were ferried ashore by helicopter.

Passengers stranded on the island of Giglio were accommodated in a local church, school and other premises where there was at least some free space. Local residents helped the shipwrecked as best they could, bringing them food, blankets, and warm clothes. Meanwhile, rescuers did not stop working, trying to find people inside the ship, including in the underwater part in the air pockets that had formed. Their efforts were not unsuccessful: on January 14-15, two newlyweds from South Korea and one Italian crew member were found and rescued.

The disaster killed 32 people. The search for bodies continued for a long time - the remains of the most recent missing person were discovered only in November 2013. On February 1, 2014, another person was added to the mournful list - a diver died as a result of an accident while working to raise the vessel.

The Costa Concordia remained at the wreck site for two years and became a tourist attraction. A stream of tourists flocked to the island of Giglio. In the nearest town of San Stefano, located on the mainland, tour operators were doing business - selling tickets for excursions to the site of the tragedy. However, the inhabitants of the island were not happy with the hull of the ship, which became a grave. In addition, they feared that fuel and sewage would begin to leak from the airliner’s tanks. Therefore, they threatened the Costa Crociere company with legal action if the half-sunken ship was not removed in a timely manner.

There were about six thousand works of art on board the sunken liner. The most valuable of these is the rare collection of Japanese prints from the 18th-19th centuries, in particular by Katsushika Hokusai. The Costa Concordia also contained 19th-century Bohemian glass, antiques, jewelry from the ship's jewelry stores, and valuables and money left by passengers in cabins. Therefore, Coast Guard forces and carabinieri guarded the ship from attacks by looters. However, Italian media reported the theft of a ship's bell back in March 2012.

Work to pump 2,300 tons of fuel, oil and sewage from the tanks was completed on March 24, 2012. A month later, it was announced that the tender for work on lifting and evacuation of the vessel was won by the American company Titan Salvage. The operation was originally expected to take seven to ten months. In reality, it turned out much more, since a large amount of preparatory work was required. An underwater platform was built under the bottom of the ship, and special counterweight pontoons were installed on the left side, which, after filling with water, were supposed to put the liner on an even keel.

The 19-hour operation to straighten and lift the airliner was carried out on September 16-17, 2013. The vessel was placed on an even keel using 36 steel cables and counterweight pontoons. Then a platform with similar pontoons was brought to the starboard side. After draining all the pontoons, the skeleton of the Costa Concordia floated to the surface.

It is believed that the work performed was the most expensive in the history of rescue operations. Their cost was about 250 million euros.

The Costa Concordia remained off the island of Giglio for another 10 months, and only at the end of July 2014 was it towed for disposal to the shipyard in Sestri Ponente - where the ship was built 8 years ago. It was assumed that the work on cutting the hull into metal would take 22 months and end in the spring of 2016.

The court found the captain of the Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino, to be the main and, in fact, the only culprit of the disaster. He was accused of negligence, involuntary manslaughter of 32 people and of abandoning his ship before all passengers were evacuated. However, Schettino denied many of the charges brought against him, showing miracles of resourcefulness. In particular, he argued that it was not he who was to blame for the deaths, but the unsatisfactory security system of the liner. He tried to shift the blame for the collision with the reef onto the Filipino helmsman, who allegedly, due to poor knowledge of the language, carried out commands too slowly... He explained his flight at the very beginning of the evacuation in court as follows: “I didn’t even have a life jacket because I gave it to one of the passengers. I tried to get the vest from the lifeboat, where they usually are. The ship suddenly tilted by about 60-70 degrees. I lost my footing and fell into one of the lifeboats. That's why I ended up there."

Tests for alcohol and drugs gave negative results, but Schettino, according to people who knew him, even when sober, was distinguished by indiscipline and recklessness unusual for his age (51 years old). One of his colleagues said: “He would even drive a bus like a Ferrari!”

On February 12, 2015, the Grosseto court found Schettino guilty and sentenced him to 16 years in prison.

The total damage from the death of the Costa Concordia for the shipowner was approximately 1.5 billion euros. And this, of course, does not take into account reputational losses.

In the photographs below you can compare the interiors of the liner - before the disaster and after two years under water:

Not long ago, one of the most expensive and unprecedented projects in history was completed, which cost 600 million euros and involved more than 500 people from 24 countries around the world - the recovery of the cruise ship Costa Concordia, which partially sank off the coast of Tuscany (the island of Giglio).

Such an operation is almost unprecedented. The cases where such an amount of force was used can be counted on one hand. However, neither the risks associated with lifting the liner nor its high cost shook the engineers’ confidence that the lift was necessary.

History of the Costa Concordia wreck

On January 13, 2012, the liner was on the route 7 Night Winter Mediterranean, which involves leaving the port of Civitavecchia to Savona, the last cruise involved the liner calling at the ports of Barcelona, ​​Marseille and several other Italian ports.

January 13, 2012, 22:00 CET the ship was near the island of Giglio (Tuscany, Italy), most of the passengers were having dinner at the restaurant at that time. It was then that the Costa Concordia hit a reef, resulting in a hole of about 30 meters. The rescue operation began.

From this moment, disagreements begin between the participants in the events - passengers and personnel of the liner. It is worth noting that all data can be interpreted from the position of individual people, and there are many of these positions (if not to say that almost everyone has their own), but the essence is still the same. As the victims of the crash say, after the collision, the ship tilted, causing panic among most of the passengers; the reaction of the ship’s captain was not long in coming and the loudspeaker announced problems with the liner’s generator.

Despite the fact that further events will not develop for the better, the captain of the ship continues to adhere to this point of view. Despite this, the evacuation continues and passengers gather en masse near the boats. As many passengers note, the liner staff failed to organize a smooth loading onto the boats. According to the investigation, which was carried out later, it turned out that the captain of the ship, Schettino, was among the first to leave the ship.

After loading onto the boats and launching, the personnel and passengers were transported to the shore, where the victims were provided with first aid. Worth noting the help local residents, who provided passengers with warm clothes, food and allocated places to stay for the night. Passengers occupied schools, churches and hotels.

Victims of the Costa Concordia cruise ship sinking

On the morning of January 14, 2012, Costa Concordia lay on its starboard side, touching the bottom. Search operations for missing persons are being organized.

As of January 17, the number of victims was 11 people, and 25 people were listed as missing. By early February, search operations in the submerged part of the ship were stopped due to the risk to scuba divers conducting search and rescue operations. And by the end of March, information was received about 30 dead and two missing.

Causes of the passenger airliner accident and punishment of those responsible

As the investigation found, the cause of the accident was a collision of the liner with a reef; among other things, a technical failure of the liner’s equipment cannot be ruled out. Experts were outraged by the fact that despite the fact that the liner passes this route 52 times a year, there was a deviation from the course by 3-4 miles. This can be explained by the initial statements of the captain of the liner, Francesco Schettino, who said that having shifted to the side coastline he wanted to greet his friend (former captain of Costa Concordia) who lives on the island. However, later, Schettino retracted his testimony and shifted the blame to the company manager, who, according to him, insisted that the ship come closer to the shore.

Decoding the black box showed that the ship was too close to the shore, the start of the evacuation occurred too late, in addition, the captain never sent a distress signal, which delayed the start of the rescue operation. Until July 17, 2013, Schettino was under house arrest by court order. On this moment The trial is underway, the prosecutor's proposed sentence is 2,697 years in prison.

Liquidation of consequences and rise of Costa Concordia

Just three days after the ship sank, an oily liquid began to leak from the vessel; experts reassured the public with assurances that it was not fuel. Fuel pumping began as there was a possibility that the ship would slide off the cliff. If this happened, more than 2,000 tons could end up at sea. Naturally, such a prospect did not make anyone smile. However, already on March 24 it was announced that the fuel had been pumped out, and literally a month later a tender was held to lift and evacuate the vessel, which was won by Titan Salvage.

The plan for raising the vessel is quite simple, but it required significant investments, and the operation itself was associated with a high risk of failure, as both company engineers and leading experts have said more than once. In mid-2013, work continues to prepare for the lifting of the vessel.

On September 16 at 9 am, the operation to raise the Costa Concordia began. The length of the liner is 290 meters, the angle of roll was 70 degrees, and the water level was 20 meters. The planned operation time is ideally 12 hours. Below is a graphic plan for lifting the liner.

On September 17, after 19 hours, the operation was finally completed successfully; it was possible to bring the ship into a horizontal position. Following the results of the operation, Franco Porselaki, vice president of ARNIVAL CORPORATION, reported that everything went perfectly, and most importantly, no harm to the environment was noticed. However, despite the fact that the ascent was completed successfully, experts do not consider it necessary to relax and remind that this is not the end. In the spring, the liner will have to be transported to the shipyard, where the Costa Concordia will be dismantled.

The Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia sank after hitting a reef off the island of Giglio on January 13, 2012, killing 32 passengers and crew. 613 days after the disaster, work began to raise the ship. The complex rescue operation "parbuckling" became the largest and most expensive in history: it cost $800 million and took many months to prepare. In fact, the operation took 19 hours, and after its completion, the liner assumed a vertical position to the joyful cries of the crowd gathered on the coast.

(Total 38 photos)

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1. View of the Costa Concordia after the ship ran aground and rolled on its side off the coast of Isola del Giglio, January 14, 2012.

The liner Costa Concordia sank on January 13 last year off the Italian island of Giglio. The ship, which was carrying several thousand people, hit a reef because the ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, decided to come closer to the shore to greet his acquaintance.

During the crash of the liner, 30 people died, two more are listed as missing. More than 4 thousand people were evacuated, among them there were casualties.

The Costa Concordia became the largest passenger ship in history to sink.

The Italian press has published recordings of the black boxes of the sunken cruise ship Costa Concordia, which were previously considered non-existent due to the recorders allegedly being turned off during the voyage. The negotiations serve as convincing evidence of the guilt of the captain of the liner, Francesco Schettino, in the incident and indicate that after the collision with the reef, real panic reigned among the crew members.

Recorder data showed that Schettino removed the ship from autopilot and took control at 9:39 p.m., six minutes before the collision, which occurred at 9:45 p.m.

At 09:56 the captain called the emergency service officer on duty and admitted his guilt: “I screwed up. Listen, I'm dying. Do not say anything to me". A few more minutes later, he called the same officer back, but already tried to shift responsibility to the junior officer: “It’s all Palombo. He told me: “Let’s swim closer, closer.” Well, I swam closer, hitting the reef with my stern. But I just wanted to please him, it’s just a disaster.”

Then the captain actually stopped taking part in controlling the ship, delaying the start of the evacuation of passengers. As a result, it began when the ship was already heavily filled with water, and orders were given during the evacuation not by Schettino, but by his colleagues.

7. Cruise ship captain Francesco Schettino gets into a police car in Grosseto, Italy, January 14, 2012. Schettino was arrested and charged with manslaughter.

According to the prosecution, Captain Schettino brought the cruise ship Costa Concordia too close to the coast of the island of Giglio and landed the ship on a rock. If the captain is found guilty, he faces up to 20 years in prison. Francesco Schettino himself denies the accusations against him, claiming that the rock on which the liner ran into was not present nautical charts. During the hearing, the captain's defense once again offered the court a plea deal in which Schettino would agree to a three-year prison sentence if the court ruled that he was only partially responsible for the tragedy. According to forecasts, the captain's fate is unlikely to be decided before October.

8. Rescuers work near the cruise ship Costa Concordia, lying on its side off the coast of the Tuscan island of Giglio.

9. Rescuers work at the site of the Costa Concordia liner crash.

According to numerous evidence, confirmed by video recordings, the crew of the Costa Concordia simply failed the rescue operation. Captain Schettino, according to Vesti, instead of starting the evacuation and issuing a distress signal, 15 minutes after the collision announced that the ship simply had minor problems with the generator. Half an hour later, the passengers were already standing near the boats, still covered, and the captain again reported problems with the generator. Only closer to 11 o'clock, when the list reached 30 degrees, seven short and one long beeps were heard, meaning that the passengers had to leave the ship. Panic and stampede began. Captain Schettino, according to investigators, was one of the first to leave the ship without sending a distress signal. The coast guard itself contacted the ship in distress. Only then, late at night, did the real rescue operation begin. Those who did not get into the boat (four were never launched, apparently due to too much list), were removed with the help of helicopters, when they clung to the handrails of the liner that had fallen on board. Some swam to the shore, which was very close.

10. Transportation of furniture recovered from the sunken liner.

Most of the passengers were taken to the island of Giglio itself. Residents of the island provided assistance to the shipwrecked people, bringing them food, drink, warm clothes, and placing them in a local church, school and other buildings.

On January 14-15, two newlyweds from South Korea, and one Italian is a crew member.

11. A diver inspects the hull of the ship.

12. Divers inside the Costa Concordia liner.

Valuables with a total value of more than €10 million were found on board the cruise ship Costa Concordia, which was raised from the reefs. Money and jewelry that the passengers of the sinking liner did not have time to take with them in a hurry were kept in a bank and jewelry boutiques located on board the ship, as well as in lockers in passenger cabins.

13. The wreckage of the liner under water.

14. A diver inspects the ship.

15. Divers are working inside the liner.

There were about six thousand works of art on board the sunken liner. The most valuable of these is the rare collection of Japanese prints of the 18th-19th centuries, in particular the works of Katsushika Hokusai. The ship also had 19th-century Bohemian glass and other antiques decorating the interior, jewelry from the ship's jewelry stores, and numerous valuables that were left behind by passengers leaving the ship. In this regard, fears were expressed that these valuables could become the prey of “treasure hunters”

16. Inside the Costa Concordia liner.

17. Preparations for the operation to remove half a million gallons of fuel from the Costa Concordia airliner, January 28, 2012.

On January 16, an oily liquid began to leak from the vessel. It was not yet flammable, as officials from the Italian Ministry of the Environment claimed, but if the ship had slipped off the rocks and broken, two thousand three hundred tons of fuel could have spilled into the sea. Therefore, we pumped out the fuel.

18. Costa Concordia off the coast of Giglio.

19. Relatives of shipwreck victims touch a plaque with the names of the 32 victims a year after the disaster on the Tuscan island of Isola del Giglio, Italy, January 13, 2013.

21. Specialists collect spilled fuel near the Costa Concordia liner, January 25, 2012.

22. Workers use massive steel tanks to return the Costa Concordia liner to an upright position on January 11, 2013.

Engineers had never before had to move such a large ship that sank so close to the shore. Costa Concordia weighs more than 114 thousand tons, and the length of the ship is comparable to three football fields.

23. Welders work on the Costa Concordia liner, July 15, 2013. The hull of the airliner was compressed by 3 meters under its own weight.

If the airliner did capsize, the consequences for the environment would be catastrophic. The reef in the protected area near the island of Giglio would have been destroyed, and the ship itself would have gone deep under water.

26. Employees of the American company Titan and the Italian company Micoperi are working on the Costa Concordia liner, September 15, 2013. The "parbuckling" salvage operation is designed to lift the airliner using a series of cables and hydraulic machines.

By mid-2013, the liner was still lying on board off the coast, attracting many tourists. Work was underway to prepare it for lifting: divers were building a platform on the shore side, and large square counterweight tanks were suspended on the opposite side, which, after filling with water, were supposed to put the ship on the keel.30. The beginning of the final stage of the operation to raise the Costa Concordia liner, September 16, 2013.33. On September 16, 2013, at 9:00 am, the operation to raise the vessel began. In the photo taken on this day: The Costa Concordia liner is in a vertical state for the first time since January 2012.36. Starboard side of Costa Concordia, September 17, 2013.

37. The Costa Concordia liner is in an upright position after a rescue operation, September 17, 2013.

The 19-hour operation to raise the vessel is over. The vessel was brought into a vertical position using rollers and 36 steel cables and a special platform built at a depth of 30 m.

38. The Costa Concordia liner returned to its upright position after a large-scale operation to the applause and joyful cries of local residents, September 17, 2013.

In an upright position, Concordia will remain in front of the island of Giglio until at least spring, when the ship will be towed to one of the nearest ports. Raising the vessel cost 600 million US dollars.

Hello, dear readers, subscribers, friends and random visitors, Vladimir Raichev is in touch with you. How can you hear me, hello? Have you heard anything about the crash of the Costa Concordia liner? You've probably heard, I already wrote about this.

I think it would be useful to refresh your knowledge about this disaster, look at this issue of Euronews:

I would like to note that initially the course of the Costa Concordia liner was changed, according to the captain, he was asked about this by a colleague who was on board. Well, come to think of it, they changed course - is that a problem? But it only seems so.

Causes of the plane crash

Absent from the ship detailed maps to change course, so the crew was essentially walking blind. We were guided, as they say, by sound. Do you think this is normal? What if the fate is that there are over 4,000 people on board?

Another well-known problem was that at the helm of the liner there was a man who had difficulty understanding the captain’s commands. this is recorded by the ship's independent systems (think of it as a kind of black box on the ship).

It took the helmsman more than 13 seconds to turn the ship in the right direction. Just imagine, 13 seconds after receiving a command to begin executing it. Tough, right?

After receiving a hole, the ship still drifted for several tens of minutes and evacuation from the ship was not carried out. The team did not know how to act in an emergency situation. Doesn't remind you of anything? The story is very similar to the sinking of the Titanic. Don't you think so?

The opinion of the captain of the SS Navigator liner Maxim Melnikov about the causes of the disaster

I shared my thoughts with you, but I also have an interview with the captain of the ship SS Navigator of the Regent Seven of thr Seas Cruises, our compatriot, Maxim Melnikov. Everything he said was left unedited, I present it as it is. The interview was given immediately after the crash.

The immediate cause is human error. But what led to it, and how did everything that followed happen? To answer these questions we must wait for at least the preliminary results of the investigation.

There is a very fine line between recklessness and masterly navigation. The captain admitted that he wanted to salute his senior colleague who was on shore with the maneuver. Well what can I say: It was a success! This is black humor. But seriously, a very dubious decision - in dark time days in cramped conditions of navigation on a 300-meter vessel, and even at an unsafe speed.

Based on your personal experience work and communication with Italian sailors, including captains, I can say that in general they are good specialists. But I wouldn’t say that they are all “one of the best in the world.” Although it depends on who you compare with. In any case, neither our sailors nor the Croats are inferior to them in anything. But again, everything is very individual, especially when it comes to captains.

For a number of reasons, there are a lot of Italian captains in the cruise industry. I personally worked and know seven people, all of them are strong specialists. But in my opinion the British and Scandinavians are head and shoulders above in many respects.

The crews of the ships are now mixed. For example, I have 42 nationalities among 400 crew members. There are not enough people, and especially good sailors. Over the past 15 years, the cruise industry has grown at such a pace that there simply is not time to train specialists with the required qualifications. Hence the staff turnover with all the ensuing consequences.

It would be wrong to divide crew members based on nationality, although there are some peculiarities in managing people from different countries. For example, you should not raise your voice at Filipinos - this does not give the expected effect, they simply fall into a stupor, get offended and stop working.

But with “Mediterranean” people you can make some noise, they are like that – with hot blood. The main reason for hiring Asians is that they give the best price-quality ratio today, are ready to work on a ship for 10 months, know decent English, are not boisterous, are unpretentious in everyday life, and willingly obey.

A major drawback is that they are not able to command the so-called “white people”. As a result, real crowd control is not carried out very well.

On the other hand, who can really do this when the ship is tilted 60 degrees? Under normal conditions, with a roll of 5 degrees - not comfortable, 10 degrees - alarming, 20-30 degrees - guard! The best team by nationality is a multinational team, but this is almost impossible today, especially on large cruise ships.

The captain states that he was thrown into the boat due to a list, which could well have happened under the circumstances. Only next to him were, as I understood from the news, his Second-in-Command and one more Deck Officer.

Usually the captain and staff captain are assigned to rafts (not boats), which are the last to leave the ship. Therefore, it is not a “code of honor” that should apply here, but a basic alarm schedule, which is the main document in the fight for survivability. And the code of honor is good when honor itself takes place.

I once took exams for my mentor captain, the former captain of Nakhimov, after his return from prison. Should he, for moral reasons, have taken exams for young navigators? On the other hand, for one beaten one they give two unbeaten ones.

You can also inquire about the fate of the captain of the Sea Dimond or another Greek eccentric who left the ship to sink during a storm and flew away in a helicopter in order to “more effectively manage the rescue operation.”

I wanted it to be short, but it hit home! Let's build Russian cruise ships already. And then I recently stood at anchor 300 meters from the yacht Eclipse of one well-known Russian oligarch. So you can easily accommodate about 500 passengers there, if you make some room.

We all miss our passengers very much, although here on my ship we call them “guests” - after all, 6-star status obliges us even in small things.

It is not a “code of honor” that should apply, but a basic alarm schedule, which is the main document in the fight for survivability. And the code of honor is good when honor itself takes place.

After such an interview there is probably no point in commenting on anything. There is an old Russian proverb:

If you don't know the ford, don't go into the water.

It seems to me that the Italian temperament of the ship's captain played a cruel joke on him. And what do you think? Write your opinion in the comments. I'll be waiting.

 

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