From Titanic to Costa Concordia: a Century of Improved Maritime Safety

I previously decided I would not comment on the subject of the Costa Concordia sinking. Other blogs and websites have done an excellent job in conveying information about the disaster and I have felt it is unnescessary for me to waste my time in writing about the subject. But there is something about how people are interpretating this disaster I cannot ignore.

No more than 22 of the 4 211 people on the Costa Concordia perished in the accident. Photo of the Costa Concordia leaving La Goulette on 27 May 2009. More from the same day here.

Many have compared the Costa Concordia sinking into the Titanic disaster. Which is perhaps natural, as the Titanic is hugely well-known and we are in the year of the ship's 100th anniversary. But the Concordia sinking is not "just like the Titanic". Both were ships, both sank. That's about where the similarities end. People are also voicing the opinion that we have learned nothing about the Titanic. But let's look at the numbers of both disasters:

The sinking of the Titanic started the process of ever-improving safety regulations and we see the fruits of those in the Costa Concordia accident. Public domain photo from Wikimedia Commons, author unknown.

When the Titanic sank, she was carrying 2 224 passengers and crew, of whom 1 514 perished. In other words, the fatality rate of the accident was 68,1%. (Numbers from Wikipedia).

The current figures for the Costa Concordia are that she was carrying 4 211 people, of whom six are known to have died and 16 are missing. With the confirmed deaths this gives a fatality rate of 0,1%. If all the missing people are found dead, the fatality rate rises to 0,5%.

From 68 % dead to 0,5% dead in a hundred years is not "learning nothing". That's one hell of an improvement. Now I admit that the conditions on the icy North Atlantic in 1912 were quite different from the sunny Mediterranean in 2012. I'm also not saying that 0,5% is an acceptable rate of loss. Even one death is too much. Never the less, to say that we have learned nothing is hardly fair. That said, there is room for improvement, and the Costa Concordia's crew could have done better.

A very similar accident happened in 2007 to the Sea Diamond (ex-Birka Princess) near Santorini, Greece (and incident almost everyone seems to have forgotten in just five years). The Sea Diamond hit an uncharted reef and sank. There were 1195 passengers and circa 400 crew onboard (sadly I could not find the exact crew figures). Two people perished. By the earlier math, that gives a fatality rate of 0,1%. In other words, no improvement from the Sea Diamond to the Costa Concordia. And bear in mind that the Sea Diamond was built in 1986, 21 years old at the time of the accident, contra the five years of Costa Concordia. The Concordia should have done better and there is clearly still room for improvement in SOLAS regulations. Not to mention in the common sense of Italian ship captains.

I apologise for the poor quality of the image, this is my only photo of the Birka Princess, to-be-Sea Diamond (that doesn't feature my fingers), taken in Stockholm in the mid-90s. The ships forward and aft superstructure were later quite radically rebuilt.

But getting back to the point of this text: maritime safety has improved by leaps and bound in the last century. We still have accidents (mostly due to human error) and we will probably always have accidents. But in 1912 over half of the passengers perished. In 2012 one in two hundred perished. That is progress.

[Edit 17. 1. 2012:] Number of people missing from the Costa Concordia is now given as 29 as opposed to the 16 at the time of writing. With the confirmed deaths plus 29 missing, the current highest possible fatality rate is now 0,8%. Which is still low, but notably worse than on the Sea Diamond.

The Oceanic in Helsinki, 11 September 2011

The Oceanic

IMO 5260679
Former names: Oceanic, StarShip Oceanic, Big Red Boat I, Oceanic
Built 1965, Cantieri Riuniti dell'Adriatico Monfalcone, Italy
Tonnage 37 772 GT
Length 238,44 m
Width 29,42 m
Draft 8,60 m
1 550 passengers
2 CRDA-Del Laval steam turbines, combined 39 279 kW
2 propellers
2 bow thrusters
Speed 26,5 knots

Ah, The Oceanic, a classic if there ever was one! For a history of the ship, see the first entry on her. Since that entry was written, the ship has been re-registered into Panama (in place of Valletta) and at the same time the "The" was added in front of the name. Which is perhaps a bit silly.

Anyway, the photographs below show The Oceanic arriving into Helsinki West Harbour in the morning of 11 September 2011, photographed from Hernesaari. I apologise for the fact there are so many images - the ship simply looks so good it was too hard to cut down the number of shots to feature in this entry. Additional images from this date (and from my previous rendez-vous with the Oceanic on 8 June 2009) can be seen at Simplon Postcards' page for the ship.

Click on the images to see in larger size.

Annoyingly I had forgotten the ISO settings on my camera to 800 after the previous photo session and did not realise it at first when taking these photos. Hence the first images here are a bit grainier than normally.

The tugs assisting The Oceanic were Atlas (forward) and Artemis (aft). Fortunately it was a fairly calm morning.

Preparing to turn around to back into quay.

Fortunately in the current livery the too forward placement of the Peace Boat -text is balanced with the End Poverty 2015 logo.

I decided to skip the rest of the process of turning, as the ship was in the shade most of the time and didn't really look that good (there is one at Simplon Postcards though).

As usual, panoramic framing makes everything better.

So much better, in fact, that I had to use it twice in a row.

The ship looks particularly awesome from this point of view, IMO.

It's a good cause.

To be fair, I think the funnel is a bit boring compared to the awesome design of the rest of the ship (and the funnel designs on other Italian-designed ships of the time, like the brilliant Michelangelo and Raffaello, or the Guglielmo Marconi and Galileo Galilei).

A not-so-subliminal Russian flag on the bow. Timo Soini disapproves of this.

Saga Ruby in Helsinki, 9 September 2011

Saga Ruby

IMO 7214715
Former names: Vistafjord, Caronia
Built 1973, Swan Hunter Shipbuilders Wallsend, United Kingdom
Tonnage 24 492 GT
Length 191,09 m
Width 25,05 m
Draugth 8,23 m
655 passengers
655 berths
2 Sulzer diesels, combined 17 650 kW
2 propellers
1 bow thruster
Speed 20 knots

For a history of the classic Saga Ruby, alongside some very attractive images (if I may say so myself) from 2008, see the first entry on the ship. The photographs below show the Saga Ruby departing Helsinki West Harbour (Länsisatama) on 9 September 2011. Normally a ship her size would use the south Harbour, but it seems the Port of Helsinki routinely routes all cruise ships to the West Harbour during the low season. Photographed from Hernesaari. Click on the individual images to see in larger size.

Reversing from the quay, noticably without the help of a tug. It was lucky for me she had berthed bow towards the city, giving good view of the bow even from Hernesaari.

Dynamic panoramic.

The enchanced colours were made with some help from the computer, but it really was quite beautiful in real life as well.

Look at that bow, and the way the shadows - play, almost - on it.

Going bow first and heavily backlit.

Last call in Helsinki for 2011 (if I remember correctly). 2012 will see her calling at Helsinki twice, and there will be several visits by her upcoming fleetmate Saga Sapphire.

Star in Helsinki, 11 September 2011

Star

IMO 9364722
Built 2007, Aker Finnyards Helsinki, Finland
Tonnage 36 250 GT
Length 186,00 m
Width 27,70 m
Draugth 6,50 m
Ice class 1A
1 900 passengers
520 berths
450 cars
1 981 lanemeters
4 MaK diesels, combined 48 000 kW
2 propellers
2 bow thrusters
1 stern thruster
Speed 27,7 knots

What would be the new year without one of the most commonly featured ship on this blog? Possibly better, but never the less, here are some more images of the Star. In my defence, these are for once taken from a slightly different time and place as the usual, as on 11 September last year I was up unusually early to photograph the arrival of Peace Boat's The Oceanic in the West Harbour from Hernesaari. And since Star happened to arrive and depart during the timegframe I was there for The Oceanic, I also photographed the Star.

Click on the images to see in larger size.

A distant Star coming into view from behind Pihlajasaari.

Star in the morning sun doesn't quite make sense in a sentence - unless you know we're talking about a ship that is.

Starting to turn in order to reverse into the quay.

Moment later we got to see the ship's rear.

Aft thrusters are useful things.

Star reversing, with the tug Atlas heading out to sea to escort The Oceanic.

An hour later from the previous image, the Atlas has safely escorted The Oceanic into quay while the Star is already departing.

Going to Tallinn, BRB.

Victoria I in Helsinki, 3 January 2012

Victoria I

IMO 9281281
Built 2004, Aker Finnyards Rauma, Finland
Tonnage 40 975 GT
Length 193,80 m
Width 29,00 m
Draugth 6,50 m
Ice class 1A Super
2 500 passengers
2 252 berths
400 cars
1 000 lanemeters
4 Wärtsilä diesels, combined 26 240 kW
2 propellers
2 bow thrusters
Speed 22 knots

 As I have noted before, Helsinki has in effect two cruise seasons: the self-explanatory summer cruise season and a more unusual winter cruise season around new year, when Russian travel agencies charter ships for Baltic Sea cruising out of St. Petersburg (Russians also form the majority of passengers on regular cruiseferry services around this time of the year - even on those that don't actually call in Russian ports). Since the time of the year can require ships with icebreaking capability, the ships used are usually normal ferries.

This year, three ships are making four to five nights long cruises out of St. Petersburg: St. Peter Line's Princess Maria and Princess Anastasia, as well as Tallink's Victoria I. Since the first two commonly visit Helsinki anyway I did not bother photographing them, but the Victoria I is a rarer visitor and hence I went out to get some night-time (actually around 6 PM) photographs of her.

Victoria I at Kanavaterminaali in Helsinki, photographed from various locations around the South Harbour. Click on the images to see in larger size.

It was a bit too dark for really good photographs, but these will have to do. ;)

Victoria I and the two cathedrals of Helsinki: the Helsinki Cathedral on the left and Uspenski Cathedral on the right, behind the Victoria I's radar mast.

A different point of view showing the the various quays at Katajanokka.

The car deck was in use, as you can see, and apparently tour buses started directly from inside the ship.

Lastly, as a hopefully final update on the too small diplayed images problem I wrote about here, I have now gone through all the affected entries and all images in this blog should display normally. If there are any problems, please let me know.