Costa Concordia - No Surprise

I'm a little late to the party on this one, but things have been busy.

In any event, take it from someone who spent a lot of time in and around cruise ships that the Costa Concordia disaster came as no surprise. I'm only surprised that it didn't happen sooner.

Not every cruise ship captain is as reckless as Captain Schettino was, but it isn't the first time I've heard of a ship's captain changing course in order to show off. I knew of one captain some years ago who changed course all the time in order to give the passengers something different than what was written in the travel brochures. Some examples of this captain's work:

1) Pulling to within several metres of a waterfall at a fjord. I don't know how much water was under the ship, but I heard later that it wasn't much.

2) Inviting a friend's sailboat loaded with fresh fish to pull alongside the ship to drop off the cargo. The sailboat's mast got tangled in one of the lifeboat rigs, and for a few minutes it looked like the boat was going to be smashed to pieces against the ship's hull before it got free.

3) Dropping any number of lifeboats/rescue craft into the water, so that the captain, cruise director, photographers, and/or video team, could get pictures of the boat from an assortment of angles at any time. Or so the captain could go water skiing. Yes, seriously.

When I heard the news that the Costa Concordia ran aground and capsized, I wasn't surprised in the least. I'd been waiting for that kind of news for years. I didn't know which ship or cruise line it would be, but eventually one of these idiots had to screw up.

The loss of life is a tragedy. The only good thing that may come out of this disaster is that the butthead captains (and again, not all captains are buttheads) will wake up and realize that they are simply glorified bus drivers. All they have to do is get people from A to B, and that's that. They make damn good money, and they are treated like a god aboard ship. Indeed, they are a god aboard ship. Unless you're the dictator of a small Caribbean island, there is no life like that of a cruise ship captain. Now they just need to remember to flip on the autopilot and stay away from things like rocks and reefs.

While we're at it, it's worth remembering that pilots bring cruise ships in and out of harbour. Pilots are local people that know the waters, and they take over the ship when it is coming to port, or when it's heading for open sea. Once the ship is safely out to sea, a pilot will hop in his boat and say good-bye - or in this case, ciao.

I wasn't there, so I can't say for sure if a pilot ever was aboard that ship. But if there was, it meant Schettino said ciao to the pilot, then headed for shore to say hello to the island, or whatever the hell he was doing before he smashed it up. Point is, cruise ship captains more or less need to know how not to hit anything in open water, but when it comes to the in-close stuff, the pilots keep them safe - if the captains will let them.

Final thought: it was damn nice to hear the audio of the coast guard officer telling Schettino he was a coward. The translation made it obvious that what you were listening to was a man of the sea telling a cocktail party host that his playboy life was over. It's just too bad people had to die to end it.

Photo: CNN