why ships sink

[happy daze john in oz]

On a cruise with Princess line at the end of last year and on two occasions in port ALL CREW including catering had to attend a two hour safety training and awareness meeting. I am of the opinion that some lines do more than others when it comes to training. From my experienceP&O are the slackest, with Princess and Royal Caribbean very much on the ball. But no mattre how much traing the fcat remains the crew are all human and in an emergency the self survival emotion may well kick in.

[Red Lead Ted]

I agree to a certain extent with your post regarding self survival, But put yourself aboad the Costa Concordia as a trained seaman with a boat ticket ? There you have a very different job on your hands. I think we all agree that the Captain let the people who lost there lives down badly there is footage of the bridge with officers all around him screaming for him to give the abandon ship order whist his ship was stable. I could not have self survival solely in mind when woman and young children were getting told there was nothing to worry aboat go back to your cabin,s. If i was aboard that ship and was aware the Captain had abandoned i would at least have full one boat and got away from the ship asap. The problem is most of her crew were chiliean,s they are more known as fisherman not Merchant Seaman. How many ships can you recall being registered in Chilie. Chilie owns 84 merchant ships { none} of them registered in Chilie. Speaks volumes????? Regards Terry.

[happy daze john in oz]

Terry I can agree with ypou to some extent about the Cobcordia. But the fact remains there will always be some crew who will panikc when the time comes and put self survival first. The only consolation is that on the better cruise ships, as well as P&O, there appears to be a large number of English speaking officers who might just be able to organise things in the event of an emergency.

[j.sabourn]

Probably the mate didnt check all the plugs were back in at last drydocking. John sabourn

[Les Woodard]

I tend to agree with RLT over this. I think what he is getting at is that deck crews are trained to make sure that the lifeboats are deployed in an emergency and just like anyone trained to do rescue work on land it is the training that kicks in before self survival. Anyone on deck will tell you that there is more training for them than just doing boat drills that passengers or other crew members attend. I never got my boat ticket hence only staying as EDH but had to prove myself to man the boat stations to deploy the lifeboats in an orderly fashion it was part and parcel of being on deck.

[Red Lead Ted]

QUOTE,{The training kicks in} That is exactly my point regardless of your deck rating or otherwise when most of us were at sea boat drill whatever ship you were aboard was at least once a week and sometimes more. And it wasnt just talking through the motions if you all recall the lifeboat would be lowered to the lowest point possible when at sea to make sure the falls were working in the correct order. I remember being off the coast of Belize at anchor one Sunday morning. The mate asked as we wern,t turned too anyone fancy lowering a boat and heading for a little sandy stretch on the coast for a swim. 8 of us went for it couple off cases of tennents packed bully sandwiches. Lowered the port boat into the water and rowed for the beach. What we didn,t realize but the m8 did was we had a coral reef to naviate to get to the beach. Very clever of him. So he said do you navigate to the beach or turn your oar,s around. We had the bit between are teeth and managed to navigate to swim in the clear blue waters taking the boat within 20 metre,s of the sandy beach we had a great day. About 6pm that night the m8 said ok lads while you have daylight lets get back to the ship. Iam not exaggerating when i say once we had cleared the reef and took to the oar,s we had aboat a mile or so to row back and the sea had gone from calm to what i would regard very heavy swells to a force 6. We managed to get back to the ship bloody hard work it took about 2 hours and i was the last in the boat to hook her up on the boat hooks to haul her up the falls it gave me a very good insight into what abandoning ship was all about and would not have liked to have done it to save my kneck at sea. But as Les rightl,y say,s and the mate pointed out afterwards thats why your aboard this ship you are seaman and who knows when you may have to do it for real. Very clever move on his part but a gr8 experience. Regards All Terry.

---------- Post added at 01:03 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:44 AM ----------

Terry I can agree with ypou to some extent about the Cobcordia. But the fact remains there will always be some crew who will panikc when the time comes and put self survival first. The only consolation is that on the better cruise ships, as well as P&O, there appears to be a large number of English speaking officers who might just be able to organise things in the event of an emergency.

I only sailed with English speaking officer,s. But if you are up to holding a lifeboat certificate or experienced enough through practice it wouldn,t matter if you had {ABBA JABBA} or {NASHER} In charge your training and experience kicks in. I would not have to be told by any officer deck or otherwise i would go through the Abandon Ship excersice without saying a word to anyone, And further more i would expect the same standard from my fellow shipmates. Are these crew,s from all over the globe today hopeing to be guided throuh the abandon ship excersice ?. If so its a recipie fore more disaster,s. Especially when your Italian Skipper has just won the gold medal for the long jump and you dont speak Italian Regards John Terry.

[happy daze john in oz]

Ted he may be king of the long jump, but after this he may well be in for the high jump.

[Keith Tindell]

Hi, Just seen on the news the latest report from the cruise ship on its way to the Titanic site, in fact its the BBc camerman who has been taken ill, however it showed the lifeboat drill being carried out, most passengers were carrying their lifejackets, not donned, on there way to the theatre, you could see that it was a bloody nuisance to them. it is only a matter of time before we have a major loss of life at sea, that will put Titanic in the shade, regards Keith

[Captain Kong]

.
I was on the `GEORGIC` , last of the White Star Line Liners.
In 1955 on her last voyage out to Australia vi the Cape with over 2,200 passengers, £10 Poms, 1000 crew.
Her Lifeboats were double banked, one on top of the other.
In Sydney for a week ,alongside in Woolloomooloo, we lowered the upper lifeboat and then hooked up the bottom boat and heaved away on the winch and the boat folded in the middle. It was stuck to the chocks and the deck. We could not release it. so Forget it hoisted the upper lifeboat back into position and stowed it.
That lower lifeboat had probably never been hoisted since she was rebuilt after her sinking during the war.
See the double banked lifeboats in the picture, I have never seen boats like that since then, tho` a lot of the pre war built liners did have them.
Cheers
Brian.
georgic2_04.jpg

[Les Woodard]

Brian you have me intrigued mate. Have you ever done a trip on a ship where there has never been a major incident? I ask this with tongue in cheek as well.