Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Cruise Ship Runs Aground Off Coast of Italy
- Thread starter ucfgrad93
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Any engineers out there?
Sorry if this has been asked already, and if it has, feel free to link me.
What on earth are they going to do with the ship? They can't tow it or dismantle it (or can they?). Are they just going to leave it there for the rest of eternity?
Sorry if this has been asked already, and if it has, feel free to link me.
What on earth are they going to do with the ship? They can't tow it or dismantle it (or can they?). Are they just going to leave it there for the rest of eternity?
I was wondering the same thing...
Perhaps the gash (visible in news photographs) will be repaired on site – and the water pumped out – at least enough to correct the list and tow the vessel into port.
They are already saying this might be the most expensive maratime incident since Exxon Valdez in '89.
Surprised to see the boat THAT close to land.
For smaller vessels, divers can put salvage bags under it and pump air to get it up. Not sure about such a big boat. I am guessing the structure damage is so great they have to chop it up, because they don't have cranes that can lift such a boat out of the water.
For the tsunami stranded boats, even ones that look fine outside, it's cheaper to build new ones than repair.
There is already a salvage company on site - Smit Tak, and they've been contracted to pump the fuel out... which they've already started to do. Supposedly they have offered to salvage the ship.
If memory serves (I read a great book about salvage law a long time ago) - Smit Tak will start by saying that the ship is about to become a complete write-off - newspaper reports I've read have put the value of the ship at $500million. Smit Tak will offer point out that their fee is very reasonable, and that they are the only salvage company in the world with the expertise.
The company/insurers will insist that the ship just needs to have some dents buffed out, that it's still practically floating by itself, and that the local Giglio Dive & Bait shop has offered to pull the ship off the rocks for much more reasonable fee.
At some point they're reach an agreement about a fee, with Smit Tak agreeing that if they don't deliver the ship to a specified port they won't get paid at all. Anyway.... all of that is from memory, and from a few decades ago... so things could have changed.
They will need to agree to something fast because the ship, according to some news reports, has already started to shift. It's sitting on narrow rock shelf, and if it slides off it's gone for good.
It'll be a lot of work, but I don't believe it's actually too difficult to salvage this ship. Slap a big temporary patch over the gash. Doesn't have to be structural strong, a whack of airbags, and some big pumps. All they have to do is get it mostly up and then tow it to a dry-dock. They'll have to do that even it's going to be scrapped since they will need to get all the hazardous materials off before it's broken up.
In the interest of fairness, I have to point out that according to the BBC reports, the captain claims to have been the last person off the ship. I'm not sure where the accusations against him are coming from, but until the legal wranglings play out we won't know what happened.
It seems pretty obvious that he's in deep trouble for the unplanned deviation close to the island. If he can prove that the rocks he hit were uncharted and that he was indeed the last person to leave, those will be considered mitigating factors. But I think he's probably facing jail either way.
It's all extremely dependent on the integrity of the hull. If the visible gash on the port side is the only significant damage to the hull, then the salvage company should be able to patch the hull, re-float her by pumping out the water and tow the ship to a drydock. Even so, the ship would still have to be gutted and the entire interior replaced, along with the electrical/electronic systems, and the engines would have to be overhauled.
If the ship shifts, it may damage the hull further, or as you say the ship could slip into deep water, making salvage far more expensive. The ship is currently resting on her starboard side, so if there are rocks down there she is probably sustaining hull damage to her starboard side as well.
In terms of the feasibility of salvage, bigger ships have been successfully salvaged before from deeper water. But the big question will be what is economically achievable.
It seems pretty obvious that he's in deep trouble for the unplanned deviation close to the island. If he can prove that the rocks he hit were uncharted and that he was indeed the last person to leave, those will be considered mitigating factors. But I think he's probably facing jail either way.
It's all extremely dependent on the integrity of the hull. If the visible gash on the port side is the only significant damage to the hull, then the salvage company should be able to patch the hull, re-float her by pumping out the water and tow the ship to a drydock. Even so, the ship would still have to be gutted and the entire interior replaced, along with the electrical/electronic systems, and the engines would have to be overhauled.
If the ship shifts, it may damage the hull further, or as you say the ship could slip into deep water, making salvage far more expensive. The ship is currently resting on her starboard side, so if there are rocks down there she is probably sustaining hull damage to her starboard side as well.
In terms of the feasibility of salvage, bigger ships have been successfully salvaged before from deeper water. But the big question will be what is economically achievable.
Been following this story all day. As an avid cruiser, this is a good reminder that accidents DO happen. Wonder how many macs were left on board!! Luckily injuries and fatalities were minimal and my thoughts are with the families of the victims this evening.
All very good points. I will also add that they need to make the decision very very quickly before the weather turns.... and that it will much more expensive if the ship slips off into deeper water, especially if the fuel is still on-board. The cost of cleaning up the mess will be astronomical. I read today that Giglio has been awarded a prize/certificate for the most transparent water in Italy (or was a bigger area ? I forget) ... but the point is.... anything that damages that reputation is going to cost somebody big bucks.
I think the company has been told that if they want to continue as a viable company they will need to take their hulk and move it somewhere else, and that the company should not be thinking about how much that might cost - that whatever it costs to move the hulk is going to pale to how much it's going to cost them if the ship fouls that coast. But that is just my belief.
The worst case scenario is that the ship breaks up, such as happened very recently with that container ship off New Zealand. Then it becomes an environmental disaster and the wreckage has to be picked up, piece by piece. This would be a financial disaster for the cruise line.
With that being said, the hull damage doesn't look catastrophic to me, her back isn't broken and the seas are still relatively calm compared with New Zealand. Salvors need to work fast, but on first glance it looks to me like they should be able to get her re-floated and tow her to a dry dock. If the weather gets bad the risk increases dramatically though.
The short answer is no. A hull breach that size would probably sink any similar ship. As I understand it, hull compartmentalization will slow the sinking process and help the ship settle on an even keel rather than capsizing, but it will not keep a ship afloat indefinitely.
I think that is an issue the courts will have to decide.
But, from the limited information we have, it seems that the captain - realizing that he had hit rocks and the ship was taking on water - headed for the island and beached the ship close to land, where it settled on the bottom. This probably prevented the ship from capsizing and sinking in deeper water - an event that would have almost certainly caused a greater loss of life and probably made economical salvage unlikely.
Under the circumstances, the captain probably could not have done more to save the ship, once he'd made the fatal mistake of hitting the rocks.
One report I read was thinking that because the ship was partially supported by touching the bottom it listed way more than it should have... i.e. that if it had been in deep water it would have sunk on a more even keel. Apparently one of the requirements for passenger ships is that they sink without an excessive list so that the life-boats can be launched.
This was just speculation of course.... but it seemed to be from a good source.
As you have said, we won't know anything for sure for a long time. We are just armchair salvagers at this point.....
True, cruise ships and liners are designed to sink on an even keel as I mentioned before. The weather was calm enough that the risk of capsizing was fairly low - but it's still better to beach a sinking ship close to shore than to let it go down in deep water. As you say, the ship is resting on the bottom and the slope from the shore towards deeper water accounts for the list. Parts of the ship may be above water but it has effectively sunk.
Of course, the ship is still perched rather precariously; it could easily slide into deeper water if they are unable to re-float it quickly.
According to Dutch TV the owners and insurers and Smit Tak are in talks about salvage. The ship is just to big to tow off in one go, best case scenario the ship will be cut up and floated away for scrap.
Just heard that Smit Tak are blasting holes in the hull with shaped charges, to help in the search for missing victims.
This does not appear to be the case... a very damning conversation between the captain and the coastguard has just been translated and published by the BBC.
Excerpt:
^^^^^
That does not make the Captain look good - I read a translation on a news site here that also indicates the First Mate was on the lifeboat with him as well. Yikes.
That does not make the Captain look good - I read a translation on a news site here that also indicates the First Mate was on the lifeboat with him as well. Yikes.
Others report that the captain wanted to do a "fly by", thus got too close to land.
If the captain knows what he's doing, he would have announced his intentions and have an orderly evaculation, instead of what happened.
The captain already lied about being the "last" off the boat, so I wouldn't believe what he says.
Probably would have been safer to have all the life boats launch.
Sounds like this was a regular occurrence.
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel...linked-to-cruise-disaster-20120116-1q27o.html
Indeed, this changes things completely - we pretty much now know that the captain left the ship well before the evacuation. At best his actions displayed extreme incompetence; at worst, inexcusable cowardice.
I think it's fair to say that the captain's defense looks extremely shaky now.
I think we can also say that the chances of this captain even being allowed to rent the rowboats at a carnival's Tunnel of Love is extremely shaky. His maritime career is now over, I'm guessing.
This doesn't help:
I couldn't agree more. I see a lot of jail time for this guy and his first mate. Man that tape is bad......