Almost Titanic 2

How scary is that! I can't imagine what it would have been like on there with young kids, trying to get to a lifeboat.
Actually, I can, and its a horrible thought. :(
 
lookitsjonno said:
how can this happen with all the complex technology on board these days, they have systems that can see underwater hazards from several hundred meteres.

smells like human error to me.
Click to expand...

i will attempt to answer this with my very limited knowledge of boats and their technology (by limited, i mean ive read most of the 'Dirk Pitt' novels by Clive Cussler):

as sim said, she is a monster, weighing in at 114,500 tonnes. it may be more because i have no idea if this includes crew, cargo, etc. she also can go at a fairly high speed of 21.5 knots when fully laiden. because of this it will take a colossal distance to stop her. we could be talking over half a mile.

sand banks underwater, and therefore water depth, is very poorly mapped in some areas, so i imagine ships will rely on some sort of device (in the clive cussler books they rely on a fathometer), to measure the depth of the sea in any given area. in the books this usually gives a range of ~100m around the boats, but obviously this could be massively far out.

personally i suspect that what happened is that it was low tide wherever she ran aground, and the fathometer (or whatever was being used to measure depth) just didnt have enough range to give the captain enough warning to move the boat out of harms way.

as i said, i am very happy to be proved wrong here, but this would be my best guess
 
physichull said:
Its almost a Poseiden remake. Crazy that this can happen in this day and age though. Some of the photographs are stunning.
Click to expand...

I assume you've never seen Poseiden. A film about a boat, in the middle of the ocean, nowhere near land, caught in a storm and flattened by a massive parallel wave.

The similarities end at the fact these are both boats :)
 
The waters around Italy (and the med. in general) are very well surveyed. Coupled with digital navigation charts and GPS, backed up with radar and visual observations there is no way that this vessel hit an uncharted underwater obstruction.

Most vessels are equipped with an echo sounder which only measures depth of water vertically down from the keel. To detect underwater hazards AHEAD of the vessel a device such as SONAR is required, which it is unlikely to have.

It therefore follows that the vessel was out of position, which could be down to several factors.

One reason could be an over-reliance on one position keeping method such as GPS, and for some reason the GPS giving wrong information.
Could also be a navigation error, i.e. an alter course waypoint was missed due to the bridge team (officerof the watch and Master) being distracted by something, and failing to alter course at the appropriate time. Exxon Valdez was such an error.

Also could be a steering gear malfunction.

I should add that I have been Master of the following vessels; S.S. Leonia (318,000 tonnes DWT), SS Lepeta (318,000 tonnes DWT) and MT Opalia (299,000 tonnes DWT)
 
Last edited:
A bit of T-Cut should sort that right out.

This is why I'd rather stick to cargo vessels, with a smaller crew of about 30, all trained in offshore survival. I would not like to try and control 3000+ panicking passengers.
 
must have been scary to the people on the ship.

still doesnt put me oiff though. I cant imagine going on any other type of holiday!
 
Really don't get how or why they are comparing this to Titanic. Loads of big ships have sunk since then in similar situations to it - some with massive loss of life - but this is It's not even remotely close. It rolls over a bit right next to the beach and it's being called the next Titanic?!? The media really boggles my mind sometimes.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom