On 01/05/2012 13:30, dennis@home wrote:


"Gary" wrote in message
...

Have people learned nothing from Titanic.

the obvious answer is no.

Look at the Costa Concordia accident, It hit a rock, got a gash in its
side, floated for a few minutes and then capsized.

More accurately, the crew did a crash stop by dropping the anchors,
which caused the ship to execute a fast 180 degree turn, before running
aground sideways. Once aground, there was not enough water for it to
remain floating upright, so it fell over on its side. It took about
three hours for it to fall over, although it started listing after about
20 minutes.

If the wind hadn't blown it into the shore there would have been
thousands dead.

If it hadn't been next to the shore to begin with, it wouldn't have hit
the rock, it wouldn't have run aground and it wouldn't have fallen over.

They couldn't even launch the lifeboats.

They are not designed to be launched once the ship is listing more than
20 degrees, which happened before the launch order was given.

On the other hand the titanic suffered similar damage and stayed afloat
long enough to launch all its lifeboats and saved thousands from certain
death.

Titanic did not launch all her lifeboats, although she had more than
three times the time (30 minutes) allowed by current regulations between
the evacuation order and getting the last boat away. Two floated off as
she went down, one of which was upside down. They saved 711 passengers,
rather than 'thousands'.

Colin Bignell