by Barista Uno | Sep 18, 2013 | Marine Accidents and Safety
Who wouldn’t be impressed by the Costa Concordia salvage operation? The ‘parbuckling‘ entailed meticulous preparations and took 19 hours. When the 114,137 grt ship was finally righted on Tuesday, 17th September, the press hailed the process as an ‘engineering feat.’ We wonder, though, what the families of the 32 killed in the January 2012 disaster thought of the whole thing. More than US$800 million to pull upright a ship which had been declared a constructive total loss? (more…)
by Barista Uno | Jan 14, 2013 | Marine Accidents and Safety, Media, Communications and Language
We made a short blast on Twitter on the first anniversary of the Costa Concordia cruise tragedy, 13th January 2013, and the day after. We couldn’t help it. The whole Costa Concordia affair makes us twitch and think aloud – about the value of human life; how some misguided souls could be so quick to defend the ship captain; the state of the maritime press; the ugly reality behind the glamour world of cruising; and why the world is seeing no end to fatal accidents at sea. (more…)
by Barista Uno | Jan 13, 2013 | Announcements and Events, Marine Accidents and Safety
Photo credit: Roberto Vongher
We still don’t get it. Some hearts were bleeding for the captain of the Costa Concordia, the cruise liner that capsized off the coast of Italy on 13th January 2012. They called for mercy and freedom for the man soon after he was placed under house arrest to face investigation for alleged multiple manslaughter, abandoning ship and failure to communicate with maritime authorities. Yet, the same do-gooders were silent when 22-year-old engineer cadet Dayra Wood died on board a shabby Panamanian product carrier a few months later, her body kept inside the ship’s refrigerator for 17 days whilst the vessel was allowed to sail on. (more…)
by Barista Uno | Jun 15, 2012 | Marine Accidents and Safety, Nature and the Environment
We’re for the fair treatment of seafarers who figure in marine accidents, for due process, for legal assistance to the accused and for justice tempered with mercy. Those who are not, we dare say, are stone-hearted. But we don’t understand the calls for leniency towards the Filipino master of the MV Rena, which ran aground in October 2011 and caused New Zealand’s worst ever maritime environmental disaster, and the Italian master of the Costa Concordia, which partially sank after hitting a rock off the Italian coast in January 2012, killing at least 32 persons and injuring scores of others. (more…)
by Barista Uno | Feb 10, 2012 | Marine Accidents and Safety, Media, Communications and Language
Sometimes we wonder how Filipino seafarers and Filipinos in general are regarded by the world at large. Twelve days after the 13th January Costa Concordia incident, The Nautical Institute (NI) issued a press statement in which it lamented how “blatant speculation into the actions of Captain Schettino and others before” was being “presented as fact”. We are one with the NI in condemning trial by publicity. On the other hand, we don’t recall the venerable Institute issuing a similar statement in the aftermath of the Rena accident on 5th October 2011 where a Filipino master took centre stage. (more…)
