Chris Roubis

I can speculate about the first two. Maybe too many bulkheads were flooded for
the system to work; or more likely, by bringing the ship so close to land,
thinking it would help the evacuation, the captain actually upset the
stability and caused it to tip over. Keels are built to float, not balance
on land. And if he thought the evacuation would be easier close to land,
that would explain the delay in ordering passengers to abandon ship. It is a
decision that may be shown to have cost lives.

The last question is easy to answer. I know from many years reporting from
cruise ships that passengers, in particular those who have cruised before,
don’t take any notice of what is being said during the emergency drill held
at the start of each cruise. They talk, they laugh, they joke. They are in
holiday mood and, in the case of Costa Concordia and its ilk, on a floating
resort packed with family entertainment, bars and lounges, the last thing
anyone thinks of is a disaster such as the one we have just seen unfold.

On my last cruise with Costa, the safety announcement was made in nine
languages; the British woman next to me joked that in the event of an
emergency, the ship would have sunk by the time they finished talking.

So I’ve no doubt the chaos on Concordia was caused because passengers didn’t
know what they were doing – Costa is one of a few lines that allows people
to board at various ports on an itinerary; worryingly, initial reports say
there was no safety drill for those who embarked at Civitavecchia. It was
dark, which will have added to the panic, and witnesses say many lifeboats
couldn’t be lowered due to the angle of the ship. I suspect also that there
were communication problems between the crew and the many different
nationalities on board, and that their training would have been carried out
in daytime, in good weather and not while surrounded by frightened people.

During the safety drill, passengers are instructed to go to their cabins to
fetch their life jackets – a crazy system, especially on big ships such as
the Costa Concordia. Many passengers can’t find their cabin at sea in calm
waters and with the sun shining, so how are they supposed to find it when
the electricity has failed and they are panicking?

Royal Caribbean International abandoned that system in 2009 when it launched
Oasis of the Seas, the world’s biggest cruise ship, which holds almost 6,300
passengers. Now, people are instructed to go to the muster station in an
emergency, and if necessary life jackets will be issued there. I suspect
other cruise lines will now change their procedures, especially given the
alarming reports that passengers on Concordia couldn’t get into or out of
their cabins because there was no power.

Inevitably, the size of modern cruise ships is now under scrutiny. If things
can go so wrong on Costa Concordia, what about Oasis of the Seas and its
sister ship, Allure of the Seas? Factor in the crew on those two vessels and
you have a small town of almost 8,500 people; getting that many people off
safely in an emergency would be a daunting task.

But all that said, we need to put this accident in context. Cruising, whether
on a cruise ship or a liner – liners have the deeper draught, a pointed bow
and are faster – is the safest form of travel there is. That’s not to say
there haven’t been some accidents involving cruise ships in the 100 years
since the Titanic sank – there were fires on Star Princess in 2006 and
Hurtigruten’s Nordlys off the coast of Norway last September; in 2007, Gap
Adventures’ ship Expedition sank in Antarctica; in the same year Louis
Cruises’ Sea Diamond ran aground and sank off Santorini; and in 2010, Costa
Europa smashed into the dock in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, killing three crew
members. But Concordia is the worst. It has taken a century for it to
happen.

Although there does seem to be some bravado involved in building ever bigger
ships, I suspect Oasis and Allure will remain the world’s largest for many
years, mainly because of the sheer practical difficulties of managing
4,000-plus people. I have experienced long queues in the self-service areas
and in getting on and off large ships on port days. On Carnival Magic in
Livorno, Italy last year, I queued for 20 minutes to board after a day
ashore, and another queue next to me was moving just as slowly. On
turnaround days, which mark the end of one cruise and the start of the next,
ships usually dock at 6am and depart at 5pm, giving the crew just a few
hours to get their ship cleaned, and the bed linen and towels changed,
before the next set of passengers embarks.

But there will certainly be many more new ships built – another seven are
being added this year alone – to cater for a phenomenal increase in the
number of people taking cruises over the past 15 years. More than 21 million
took an ocean cruise last year, 1.7 million of them from the UK, and all the
signs indicate that numbers will continue to rise, though at a slower rate
than we have seen.

If I had been writing this last week, I would have said that was due to our
dire financial situation. But after last weekend, many people – in
particular first-timers who might have been tempted to cruise because it is
such good value – will think again. For how long remains to be seen. The
pictures from Concordia have been horrific, but there has been comparatively
little loss of life and the very few Britons on board are all safe and well,
so memories could be short. There are billions of pounds riding on that
hope.

Jane Archer is a travel writer specialising in cruises

Article source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568301/s/1bdef2e0/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Ctravel0Ccruises0C90A179120CCosta0EConcordia0Ewill0Eit0Esink0Ethe0Ecruise0Eindustry0Bhtml/story01.htm

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