The " Idiocy " factor !

The world has watched a superb example of " engineering ingenuity " as the sunken cruise liner Costa Concordia has been raised to an upright position off the island of Giglio in the Mediterranean.

This recovery operation has so far cost $ 865 million and the ship is now sitting on a specially constructed platform.  There are still months of work ahead to plug holes in the hull and attach air tanks before the ship can be safely refloated - and towed away to a breakers yard to be salvaged for scrap.  The entire operation will probably top a final cost of $ 1.1 billion.

The sheer size of this recovery broke a lot of records.  Costa Concordia was 290 metres in length and weighed 114,500 tonnes.   Sadly, 32 passengers lost their lives when the ship sailed perilously close to shore on January 13, 2012, and the sunken wreck has been lying on it's side for the past 20 months.

Enquiries have divulged many events that contributed to this disaster.   Cruise ships often passed close to Giglio to be a spectacle to help the islands tourist trade and this custom totally ignored the safety regulations that governed shipping channel requirements.

When the ship struck a rock, the passengers were assured that the loss of electricity to power the ships lighting was a " minor emergency " and told to return to their cabins.    Had they been told to don life jackets and go immediately to muster stations, it is likely that no loss of life would have occurred.

The tales of the sea are rife with events that end in disasters.   One of the all time classics was the loss of the Titanic, then the world's greatest and most expensive ship - which hit an iceberg and sank with heavy  loss of life.  It seems she was steaming at full speed in the dark of night - in an area known to have icebergs - in an attempt to break the Atlantic crossing record.

Those that sail in ships expect that they are in good hands, but once again the Costa Concordia disaster shows that the "idiocy factor " is always present.
Someone makes a decision - that in the cold, hard light of a later enquiry seems almost " unbelievable " - resulting in loss of the ship.

That is something to think about any time you think of booking a holiday that involves a ship - or a plane - or even a touring bus.     We are never entirely safe from that unseen " idiocy factor " !