Genoa ship fatal accident.

[Tony Wilding]

the container ship jolly nero crashed into a control tower in the port of genoa, when leaving port, the tower fell in the sea, 3 dead and more missing.

[Doc Vernon]

Italian cargo ship Jolly Nero crashes into port in Genoa killing three | World news | guardian.co.uk

Wonder how that happened!?
Is this another case of negligense ?
So mant of these accidents have been occuribg of late!
Cheers

[Ivan Cloherty]

Not necessarily Vernon, unfortunate circumstances:- that engine failure no one wants at a critical time ?, steering gear failure ? a gust of wind when in the narrows to which container ships are very susceptible and sometimes impossible to correct with no sea room to do so, misunderstood helm orders, the unfortunate possibilities are endless. Let's give them a chance to find out, alas the Italians are not having a lot of good publicity of late in matters maritime but we've all had a run of bad luck.

[cappy]

or entertaining ladies and not paying attention regards cappy

[Ron Kendall]

Latest I heard, it is now 7 dead. Having seen photos of the site, I wonder whose idea it was to build a 50 metre control tower right on the quay edge, surely it should have been further away to allow for an overhanging bow? I hope when it is rebuilt, a bit more care is taken regarding it's positioning.My Condolences to the Families of those killed.

[JerryRose]

Unfortunately these things happen and shows what a high risk business shipping is. Ships may be "living beings", but sometimes they fail.

I recall on one ship I was on in the late 'sixties during a Panama Canal transit, the steering gear failed in the Gatun Lakes. Fortunately we narrowly missed going aground and the American pilots had tugs on us in no time flat. Needless to say we stayed hooked up to tugs for the remainder of the transit.

On another ship in the early seventies we spent some time on the Maracaibo-Aruba run. During the Maracaibo Bridge passage the Master should be present on the bridge; however, one late evening passage he did not appear and I had to reassure a very jittery pilot that everything was indeed under control, I had the watch and the captain was happy with that.
A well found ship and all was well; but I wonder (in retrospect) what woiuld have happened if we had experienced some mechanical failure....

Expect the Unexpected.

[happy daze john in oz]

No doubt the truth will be a long time coming, in the mean time we can all read the tabloids with their version of the accident. But it shows how easy it is for something such as this to occur.

[Tony Wilding]

it seems not much thought was given to the siting of control tower, ships are in a liquid enviroment, not easy to control at slow speeds in confined areas, many have large overhangs fwd. But a sad day for italy.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Although they say the weather was calm and ideal, as it may well have been and having seen the design of ship with that huge solid block aft acting like a mizzen sail it is not hard to imagine that she would be a bitch to handle in the slightest wind and being 40,000 tonnes plus, once she takes charge the tugs would be hard pressed to get her back under control quickly in such a confined space. As has previously been said by Tony whoever put that tower at the quay edge wants stuffing with the rough end of a pine apple and probably had no sea experience and those who probably pointed out the folly of this placement to the planner were probably over ruled because it looked nice in that position. After all in Italy it is all about design and less about functionality.

[j.sabourn]

Ivan, should keep the same pineapple for the prime witness in the Costa Concordia saga. Is there still no ruling on this court. John Sabourn