Costa's crewing dept.

[John Arton]

Just watched a BBC news item where one family had a son working on the Concordia and now their daughter is working on the Costa Aleegro floating around the Indian Ocean without power . Both were in the entertainment staff.
Wonder if Costa's crewing dept. is suddenly going to have problems filling vacancies?. The old saying that troubles always comes in three's must have them quaking in their boots.
rgds
Capt. John Arton (ret'd)

[robpage]

I watched the Nat Geographic Channels montage of "Home" videos on the cosat Concordia disaster on Sunday Night , The Purser and the Town Mayor were interviewed as well as several of the home videos shown , admittedly in a dramatic way as cut with each other to make effects as notable as possible . I was left with the impression that the eventual evacuation was organised by a passing chimpanzee , the passengers were in panic , I think I would have been , no one , crew or travellers seemed to actually know what was happening , and there was no top down organisation . If that was a true picture then Costa/Carnival were lucky to have lost so few lives . And Commander Schattino would not be my first choice to organise a drinking session at a brewery . The embarkation to lifeboats was a free for all , I would like to think that If I had ever been in such a situation , and don't think for one minute that any ships Masters and Navigators would have taken anything I sailed on that close , that an all British traditional crew would have handled the job in a better manner .

Now back to John's thread , I am lost to see why batteries were powering the whole ship , With the exception of some 1950';s Clan Liners . where the oil to the donkey boiler coukld be pumped by hand and everything would run off the 220 V DC batteroies for long enough to restart the Main Propulsion and any remaining generators , every other ship had an emergency generator . Isolated from the main board by what was known as a Castle key . This powered lights and essentials . Do these madern Cruise ships not carry Emergency Generators , and a second thought was if I anm not mistaken the 1000 mile to the inch map shown on the TV put that ship right on the Somali Pirate's range . A boat load of hostages , surely the map must be wrong !!

[John Arton]

Rob and all
Like you I could not understand why the emergency generator did not kick in automatically when the fire in the generator room started and knocked out the main generators. The number of times I have had to test the emergency generator on board my ships is more than I can remember. These days on tankers at least, it is a requirement for the deck officers and ratings to be able to start the emergency generator and put it on the board. On the ships I wwas on this was a reasonably easy task to do should the emergency generator not kick in automatically.
Perhaps this another example of the incompetance of the crews employed by Costa, it almost seems like the entertainment crew no more about running the ship than the mates and engineers!!!!
rgds
Capt. John Arton (ret'd)

[robpage]

Certainly everything that I sailed on built after 1966 ( ish ) the Emergency generator could self start , and provide Power to the switchboard , but often to prevent it overloading there was a "Key " system required to be manually operated to kick it into the main power systems , although it automatically powered emergency circuits . Every ship I was on required it to be tested monthly too . One of the Gulf Oil ships lost the generator afer being started monthly it was never set to generate , and teh electrical end blew apart when it wa s needed in an emergency , so I believe teh test required it to generate for a period of time too , fifteen minurtes from memory .

[septiclecky]

Worked on a High Speed Craft built by Fincanteri like the Concordia was it seems they have a weird idea off having a large UPS system which kicks in soon as mains are lost until the emergency genny kicks in

[Red Lead Ted]

I would be more concerned about getting passenger,s to board them John. Gonna COSTA right few quid to put this to bed. {QUOTE} !!!!!!!!! Head of Costa Cruisers nautical operations, Capt Giorgio Moretti. There is light aboard the ship thanks to an emergency battery, But no air conditioning or cooking facilities, So passenger,s were given bread water and fruit on deck, Until a helicopter arrives on teusday morning with provisions. And to think we used to complain when aboard a bad feeder at least we never paid good money for the privelage. Some Terry.

[happy daze john in oz]

Quanta Costa, Italian for how much? Costa Concordia, Costa Alegro, methinks now costa packet for the insurers.

[Tony Wilding]

just found out the Costa Allegra was originally built as a container ship, , she is quite old, built in 1969 as the container ship Annie Johnson, 1990 gutted and rebuilt as a cruise ship , entered service in 1992.

[Red Lead Ted]

just found out the Costa Allegra was originally built as a container ship, , she is quite old, built in 1969 as the container ship Annie Johnson, 1990 gutted and rebuilt as a cruise ship , entered service in 1992.

Tony that does not suprise me at all looking at her dead in the water i thought something didn,t look quite right about her as in a {LUXURY LINER] Regards m8 Terry.

[Tony Wilding]

when you see her from astern, its quite plain she has the same shape stern as a boxboat, originally had 2 wartsila-pielstick diesels 19,139 KW, re engined with 4 wartsila diesels 19,123 KW, 4 Knots slower than originally built, now 19 Knots. was 23 years old when converted to a cruise liner so the hull is 43 years old, i wonder if they will repair her, in view of her age, ?