Costa Concordia Trial

[Roger Dyer]

[QUOTE=John Arton;.........Regarding the publicity given to him and the events, despite what many claim that he has been judged before even standing trial, surely the legal system in Italy cannot be too different to that in the u.K. and here I draw parallels between his trial and that that is going on at present at the Old Bailey in the case of phone hacking where the actions of the defendant's have been well publicised yet they are still expected and have been told by the presiding judge that they will be given a fair trial and be judged guilty or innocent by a jury after they have listened to all the evidence presented to the court.
rgdsJA[/QUOTE]

John, I beg to differ. Whilst there has certainly been a great deal of media attention surrounding the trial of Rebekah Brooks & Andy Coulson at the Old Bailey and the trial of Schettino in Italy, I would suggest the level of publicity generated by the Costa Concordia affair has attracted far greater interest world-wide.

As I have previously mentioned on this thread and elsewhere, there are major differences between the way in which these trials will be conducted. At the Old Bailey the onus of proof lies with the Prosecution and it is they who must satisfy a jury that Brooks and Coulson are guilty of the charge (s) against them. Regardless of what some may think, the complete evidence on which the Prosecution will rely to secure a conviction is not yet common knowledge to the world at large. Until such time as the jury finds them guilty, Miss Brooks and Mr.Coulson are innocent. Schettino, I'm sure, would welcome such luxury. Instead, since day one, he has been the subject of great scrutiny and opprobrium by media and public alike (and most would say deservedly so).

In Italy the situation for Mr.Schettino is very much different, for it is he who bears the onus of proof to satisfy three (3) judges that he is innocent of the charges against him. Unlike a British trial there is no jury. Schettino is well aware of the formidable body of evidence against him and, courtesy of modern media practice, so are most people throughout the civilised world. Unless a miracle should occur. it seems he is a dead duck and was, long before the commencement of his trial. Whereas, back in London, although serious, the prospects of Miss Brooks and Mr.Coulson are not yet cut and dried and they do have the benefit of a decision by jury.

In light of this, John, do you still believe a reasonable comparison can be drawn between the two trials ?.....if so, I'm afraid we must agree to disagree.


............Roger

[Ivan Cloherty]

Ivan if every ship went by the book there would be very few ships at sea, also if one insisted on going by the book one would have a very short seagoing career. Regards John Sabourn

John, I certainly didn't and don't expect every ship to go by the book or be perfect, but I did and do expect Masters, management and Superintendents (normally ex seafarers) to abide by the very basics of ship and crew safety. No ship is going to be perfect in every way, but we were duty bound to mitigate all possible dangers as far as we could. I remember one ship on a flag ship change from Norwegian to British flag where the emergency fire pump was situated within the engineroom on the bottom plates, the most vunerable place for the start of a fire, now lets say you had a fire in the engineroom which spread to the adjacent hold, what were you going to fight the fire with. I moved it from the engineroom to the foc'le head above the forepeak so that water was always available, that's what I mean about mitigating the circumstances. Also it showed a lack of proper thinking by the attending superintendent (and possibly Master) during the build and handover periods about overall safety. Rgds

[j.sabourn]

A good idea in principle. but to do one trip proves very little. If one could squash 3 or 4 years into that one trip some of the problems might be transferred to their limited knowledge. Unless of course you are Lucky/unlucky and every untoward thing that can happen does happen. In most cases they go back sporting a sun tan and boasting of their epic sea voyages after a couple of weeks at sea. Ref, to previous posts on such. Cheers John Sabourn

[j.sabourn]

#64 Ivan surprised she got by the DTI. Am sure have seen in the Regs. that the emergency fire pump had to be outside the E.R. Always saw it on ships built in the 60"s either under he focsle head or in the Steering Flat. Some people used to refer to the big ballast pump as the fire pump in the E.R. and in a lot of cases this was run at fire drills by mistake. The Emergency Fire pump used to be started by individual crew members after at each fire drill. In the case of a real fire outside the E.R. I am sure the more powerful E.R. pump would be used. Starting the emergency fire pump was usually done under the directions of an engineer so that everyone was able to start .In later models this was not necessary as they all had an electric start, but starting with the loss of electrics was also taught to everyone. Cheers John Sabourn

[Ivan Cloherty]

John it wouldn't have got by the DTI which is another reason I moved it (expensive with all piping involved, no electric start allowed only manual), Norwegian rules and regulations were very different to ours in the 70's, even had to alter the lifeboat davits as their runout was 10 degrees list whereas British flag was 15 degrees and that conversion was an expensive exercise, both items not picked up by the Supt on the purchase survey. When I was on the flag change the vessel had already been paid for. Only when you have done a flag change from other flag to British do you realise how much stricter our rules were and how much common sense they made. For instance on some foreign flag ships the portholes didn't have to big enough to allow a man through them, nor did they have to have easy access for the cabin occupant. As I said before too many instances to mention and my survey report is somewhere in storage. You soon learn what to look for, horseshoe lifebelts not allowed on British ships but common practice on Continental ships. Reason for the not allowed was that if you became weak and/or unconcious you could easily slip out of the horseshoe neck as you could in rough weather.

Could go on for yonks, but it may get boring.

[Captain Kong]

ATHENS CONVENTION.

FIVE years ago I had a case against a British Shipping Company, where I was overcome by fumes in my cabin.
Here is an Extract from the list of complaints ..



IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE Claim No:
QUEEN’S BENCH DIVISION
ADMIRALTY COURT
BETWEEN:
(1) MR BRIAN ASPINALL
(2) MS ANNE
Claimants
-and-
****** LIMITED
Defendants
____________________________

PARTICULARS OF CLAIM
____________________________

1. At the time of matters described below, the Defendant was the operator of the passenger cruise ship known as ‘************’ (“the ship”) and was a “carrier” within the meaning of the Athens Convention 1972 (as amended by the protocol of 2002 to the Convention).

2. The Claimants were at all material times “passengers” on the ship, within the meaning of the Athens Convention.
3. By way of contract (“the contract”) made by or for the benefit of the Claimants with the Defendant, the Defendant supplied to the Claimants a cruise-ship holiday on board ***** ********, between 10 March 2008 and 18 April 2008.

4. By virtue of Article 3 of the Athens Convention the Defendant shall be liable for the damage suffered as a result of the death of or personal injury to a passenger if the incident which caused the damage so suffered occurred in the course of the carriage and was due to the fault or neglect of the Defendant or of its servants or agents acting within the scope of their employment.

5. By virtue of clause 37 of its terms and conditions of booking within the contract, the Defendant agreed to: “…accept responsibility for death, injury, or illness caused by the negligent acts and/or omissions of it and its suppliers.”

6. Further, the following were express and/or implied terms or warranties of the agreements by virtue of the Defendant’s Brochures and Booking Conditions, Section 13 of the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, Section 14 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the Defendant’s duty to ensure that:

a. there was a safe and proper system for the regular safety checks on board the ship.

b. the Claimants would be warned in advance of any malfunctions and/or defects and/or changes to their room and thereby be given an opportunity to cancel or defer their holidays;

c. the cabins provided by the Claimants would be satisfactory for reasonable use, fee from any defects, and suitable for all purposes.
It is a very long document and I won the case and was paid out.
.
. So the passengers of the Concordia would have a sound case agaist Costa,.
after all a Cabin full of sea water is not fit for purpose. and they should have been informed of any failure of water tight doors etc.
Cheers
Brian,

[j.sabourn]

#67 Realize there was differences in Marine regulations re. countries. Would be interesting to know how many (if any) of the British regulations were changed to suit everyone as per new convention re regulations and certificate structures. Maybe John Arton would have a better idea than most of us now have. I really went through life adhering to the British Regs. The 15 degree one got caught out once as vessel was in minimum ballast condition and surveyor reckoned the boat ladders were 2 rungs short of reaching boat with 15 degree list. Cheers John Sabourn

[j.sabourn]

Ivan when working out east did you ever have contact with an Indian company called Chowgule. They had a c ouple of ships under the Bahamas flag and the rest of fleet under the Indian flag. Ships names started with Maratha. Cheers John Sabourn

[Malcolm S]

Quote :" Even though it is early days in the trial of the captain of the Costa Concordia I would like to open a discussion and see where it leads us.
The first major piece coming out of the trial is the assertion by Captain Schettino that the helmsman is to blame for not reacting promptly to his command and that if he had, there would have been no collision with the underwater shelf.
I know that when I was steering every command given by a bridge officer or pilot had to be immediately repeated by the helmsman. This is one of the most basic rules of steering procedure and was drilled into me from the first moment I stood behind the wheel. I find it very odd that after the captain gave a command and when there was no immediate response from the helmsman the captain didn’t react at once. These are the basics. You give a command, it comes right back at you. Any captain or officer on a well-managed bridge should have been aware of this. So where does the fault lie? With the captain or the helmsman? The other thing worth mentioning was that the helmsman was Indonesian and perhaps he didn’t understand the command. One has to ask the question how any master of a major multimillion dollar cruise ship could allow critical bridge personnel be in such a position of responsibility and not have a very good command of the language. But what was the language spoken on the bridge? English, Italian? Interesting! Something is not right about all of this.
I think that as the trial goes on there will be many more items brought up that will keep us all enthralled."



I have many friends who are pilots and some in SE Alaska. The reports I am getting from their perspective are scary, -- Pilot gives a helm order and every officer repeats that order, the last one to get a word in let alone repeat the order is the helmsman. Far too much BS has come out of this unfortunate incident. Including people sitting in some office tracking and reporting any deviation or any "non compliant" conversation even if is necessary for the vessels safety.
Glad I am retired! In my last company I was expected, as Master, to deviate for interesting or unusual sightings, to take the ship in as close as possible even stop to give all passengers an opportunity to get pictures etc. Having said that I guess I was lucky never to have any accidents.

Malcolm

[j.sabourn]

Malcom, " There for the grace of God go I", I am even surprised by todays standards there was even a man on the wheel. Automatic steering is much more accurate than anyone can steer, only the thought of a power failure is a deterrent I suppose. I am quite used to be expected to maintain a course of half a degee on each side when shooting lines on a seismic survey, this can only be done on a very sophisticated automatic system, sitting in a big padded chair and applying corrections by means of buttons. At the very least I suppose he did conform to the publically expected man at the wheel theme. The worst thing that could have happened to this man personally was the advent of the press and the so ca lled statements of falling into a boat. As someone has already said the court system is different to ours, and what appears to us as him trying to pass the buck, will not appear to him to be the same. There is no doubt in my mind he has very little chance of not taking the brunt of the disaster, one of the priviliges of the position he held. Regards John Sabourn