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Prayer for Crew and Family of
M/V Costa Concordia
Blessed Lady, Star of the Sea,
You know a parents suffering when a child is lost, or has died.
Intercede, we pray, for your people of the sea.
Pray for the passengers and crew members of the M/V Costa Concordia.
And with your motherly care, be with those who still wait for rescue, and be a source of solace for those who have lost loved one's.
AMEN |
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 Statement of Apostleship of the Sea (AOS) - Italy
on the sinking of Costa Concordia
A week after the tragedy of the Costa Concordia, the Apostleship of the Sea (AOS) - Italy, which for many years has being providing chaplains on board several ships of Costa Crociere, offering assistance to over 14,000 crew members, still experiences a feeling of pain for the victims and apprehension for the missing, but also great appreciation for the crew members who have fulfilled their duties with a sense of responsibility and dedication. The Apostleship of the Sea was involved firsthand in this tragedy through Don Raffaele Malena, the chaplain on board the Costa Concordia, who devoted himself to save lives and offer words of comfort and support during those dramatic moments. On January 14, the day after the sinking, and AOS team made up of volunteers from the Stella Maris in Genoa, went to Savona, where they met about 1,500 people, including passengers and crew members, providing comfort, psychological support and answering to their immediate needs. In the following days, January 15 to 17, the AOS team visited hospitals and hotels in Grosseto, Orbetello and Siena where, meanwhile, other crew members were hospitalized or housed. At the same time, in Rome and Civitavecchia another AOS team offered assistance to a large group of crew members from Latin American, in need of psychological support and material things (clothing, medicines, shoes, etc.) having lost all they had in the disaster. Meanwhile, the chaplains on board of other Costa vessels sailing in various parts of the world, have once again confirmed the importance of their delicate and precious work of support offering comfort to the crew members who were also affected by this tragedy because they have worked and known many of the crew of the Costa Concordia. As of today, almost all the crew members were repatriated to their countries of origin. Although in a few days the media will fall silent on this matter, there are wounds, traumas and psychological consequences that will take a long time before they will be healed. The Apostleship of the Sea, taking advantage of its worldwide network of chaplains and centers, will continue to offer its material and spiritual support to all the crew members and their families wherever they are.
For more information contact: Don Giacomo Martino
Piazza Dinegro 6/A 16126 Genova
Tel. 0108938374 Fax 0108932456 E-mail: g.martino@stellamaris.tv Website: http://www.stellamaris.tv/ |
A Chaplain's Role on a Sinking Ship
Italy's Maritime Ministry Director Comments
on Costa Concordia Tragedy
ROME, JAN. 18, 2012
Search and rescue efforts are still under way as 21 passengers from
 | Fr. Raffaele Malena
Chaplain of
the M/V Costa Concordia |
the Costa Concordia cruise ship remain unaccounted for, after the giant vessel hit rock and began sinking Friday off the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy.
As friends and family of the missing still await news of their loved ones -- including a Catholic couple from Minnesota who were excited about the chance to visit Rome during their two-week vacation -- public eye is turned on the tragedy and particularly the national soul-searching related to the captain's response to the wreck.
Among those intimately involved in the disaster are the personnel from the Church's ministry to seafarers. Father Raffaele Malena was the chaplain on board and lived the wreck firsthand.
Another priest, Father Lorenzo Pasquotti, parish priest on the island of Giglio, provided assistance to the survivors as they landed on the island.
And Father Giacomo Martino, the director of maritime ministry for the Church in Italy, has been coordinating assistance to the survivors.
The onboard chaplain called the headquarters of the Apostleship of the Sea when the wreck happened, reporting his intention to "stay close to the crew and the passengers to comfort them at this moment of great confusion."
Speaking with Vatican Radio, the chaplain has in fact given a different account of the crew's reaction than that which has circulated in some press reports.
"The problem of the evacuation was the panic; the crew behaved well," he said.
The priest shared his impression of the first moments. "There were so many children," he said. "I took a little girl in my arms. I asked that she be sent first with her mother and her evacuation took precedence."
Father Malena also praised the residents of Giglio, saying "all wanted to give a hand, they opened the inns, they gave us something to eat, blankets and everything they had."
Shock recovery
ZENIT spoke with the director of the maritime ministry, Father Martino, about the tragedy.
"The crew has probably not yet assimilated the blow entirely, and the accusations flying in the media against them make them feel shipwrecked once again," he commented.
He stressed that "speaking with many people, I see that what has been said by some of the media about incompetence is not true. Simulations of shipwrecks are made, but it is quite different when there is a real shipwreck and panic spreads."
Father Martino also spoke about the role of chaplains on cruise ships.
"He acts as a man of God, without making distinctions between the passengers and crew, even if his main task is in the sector of the crew," the director said. These "workers count on the presence of a chaplain, even if they are of other religious confessions."
"Even in Ramadan, for example, though not automatically, I am sometimes asked to say the final prayer," he commented.
[Reporting by H. Sergio Mora]
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Facing up to life as a surviving captain
Lost ships are more easily salvaged than their master's reputation
WHO would be a shipmaster, as everyone from the media to his employer bites chunks out of the reputation of poor Francesco Schettino, late of Costa Concordia ?
A century ago, perhaps the prospect of such a life as a survivor occurred to Captain Edward John Smith as he walked back into the dark and abandoned wheelhouse of Titanicbefore his ship slid into the deep.
"If I ever lost a ship, I would make damn sure I went down in her," said a master I sailed with one evening as he finished writing up his night order book and took the cup of cocoa I had made for him.
He had reached this gloomy conclusion, he told me, after reading the harrowing account of the formal inquiry into a collision in which a master, who lost his daughter in the incident, then had his certificate suspended.
My captain's assessment was probably right, when you consider how people who take on the vast responsibilities of command are treated when things go pear-shaped.
The master is the man or woman who carries the can and whose conduct falls under the spotlight after a disaster. Whether the incident was due to ill fortune or misjudgement, parties jostle to declare open season on the master's behaviour and reputation.
Lawyers' perfect hindsight will dissect the master's every action. Survivors' evidence will provide grim personal stories that can be taken out of context to prove professional negligence of one sort or another. Inevitably, the odds will be stacked against any rational assessment of one man's conduct in extremis.
Witch hunts of the past have left surviving shipmasters as wrecked as their ships from the treatment they received. Who recalls the vilification of Captain Rugiati of Torrey Canyon, exhausted, suffering from tuberculosis, being harassed to meet the tide at Milford Haven, yet "entirely to blame" for the stranding that ushered in the age of the superspill.
Remember Capt Bardari of Amoco Cadiz, who carried the blame for the grounding of his disabled very large crude carrier , which nobody could tow clear of rocks off Brittany.
Recall Capt Kirby, senior master of Herald of Free Enterprise, not even on board his ship when it came to grief in Zeebrugge, but persecuted and prosecuted nonetheless.
It is a long list of people, whose lives and careers have been wrecked like their ships, survivors who then faced judgement for their actions, in modern times mostly in criminal courts.
And these days, of course, nobody waits for the court of inquiry or trial before drawing their own conclusions about the obvious incompetence, negligence or even cowardice of the master. All those cellphone cameras, wielded by citizen journalists, provide us with "evidence", even though that they are in the hands of individuals who almost certainly have no idea of what is going on and no inkling of the complex events taking place in an evacuation.
Can any survivor, as he or she gives their breathless recollections to camera, be in possession of anything other than a fragment of the whole picture? It is so very easy to allege that there was panic or a lack of proper instruction, amid inevitable confusion, to a media that will publish these words instantly, with no counterbalancing view from somebody with a better idea of the reality.
Let us acknowledge that it takes a well-informed cruise passenger to be able to distinguish between the various senior officers of the various departments on board these huge ships. The "Captain" that some breathless survivor has allegedly seen chatting to a blonde in the bar before the accident, may well have been the chief purser, chief environmental engineer or just a barman with a lot of gold on his uniform. Almost certainly there will be very little context in the way that these fragments are then delivered.
In this most human story, the hunt is on for heroes who can be lauded or incompetents who can be roundly condemned. National stereotypes are meat and drink for the tabloids. The fact that almost no reporter has any clue about ships or shipping tends to encourage them to focus on things they do understand. Heroism. Cowardice. Blame.
An allegation, even a hint of cowardice, or of failure to abide by traditional mores of "women and children first" fills a lot of airtime and printed space.
And of course, the fact that the professionals mostly won't talk, possibly because they have a professional future to consider, leaves the questing scribes with those who want to get something off their chests. Along, of course, with the experts who, it is fair to say, are markedly less expert now that maritime expertise is a minority pursuit in former maritime countries.
Will there be any objective assessment of what went on before or after a marine accident? It very much depends on who is doing the assessing.
Despite the laudable efforts of the European Maritime Safety Agency, too many countries in Europe still cling to their old habit of investigating through judicial or criminal law. We need to know what happened, so we can prevent it happening again. Finding somebody to blame and throwing shipmasters in jail won't get us anywhere.
rjmgrey@dircon.co.uk
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Safety foundation slams Costa Cruises' treatment of master
- Friday 20 January 2012, 17:04
- by Liz McMahon
Costa Concordia's master Francesco Schettino: he is being sued by Costa Cruises, said chairman Pier Luigi Foschi.
Skagerrak Foundation calls for an investigation into Carnival's safety system
THE Skagerrak Foundation has raised concern over Carnival and Costa Cruises' treatment of Costa Concordia's master Francesco Schettino, and has urged the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control to investigate the company's safety system.
The foundation said it was alarmed that Carnival and Costa Cruises had issued public statements and drawn conclusions publicly blaming the master without acknowledgement of the company's responsibility or reference to the International Safety Management code, before any investigation and maritime inquiry.
"Maritime authorities must therefore take action. Paris MoU and the member states should take the necessary measures to ensure that the quality of the safety system in Carnival and Costa is satisfactory, and that the ISM code is implemented in the company in accordance with the intentions and visions of this very important regulation," the foundation said.
The plea from the Skagerrak Foundation comes at the same time that a public relations company working on behalf of Costa Cruises released an interview with chairman and managing director of Costa Cruises Pier Luigi Foschi, who said the firm was suing Capt Schettino and would not pay his legal fees.
In the interview, Mr Foschi refers to Costa Concordia's captain as an "idiot" and declares that "captains have too much power".
When asked if Mr Foschi had any suspicions over Capt Schettino's reliability, he answered that Capt Schettino had "always been regarded as extremely valid from a technical standpoint but he may have the odd little character problem, although nothing has ever been reported formally".
"The code of shipping places absolute power in the hands of the captain and owners can't intervene to change decisions," he said. "There's an investigation underway. Personally I believe he (Capt Schettino) hasn't been honest with us. But I have no evidence to say whether or not he was lucid."
When asked if Costa Cruises focused too much on glamour and not enough on safety, Mr Foschi said: "We don't scrimp on signalling, safety and supervision systems. But we are, of course, in the business of making dreams come true."
Capt Schettino has been arrested and as Costa Concodia was flagged in Italy an inquiry is underway to establish why the cruiseship ran aground. The inquiry is being conducted "in close co-operation with the leading harbour authorities" to ascertain the causes and responsibilities that led to the sinking of Costa Concordia.
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International Transport Workers Federation Statement
on Costa Concordia Sinking
16 January 2012
ITF general secretary David Cockroft stated: "This is a human tragedy that came close to being even worse than it was. We understand that six people are currently known to be dead and 10 missing, six of them seafarers. The wellbeing of their families and of the passengers and crew who went through this harrowing experience is at the forefront of everyone's thoughts today."
"There is some comfort in the fact that the ship is owned by a reputable company and, importantly, is Italian flagged, so a full investigation is certain. We trust that this will cover all aspects of the accident and issues surrounding the subsequent evacuation."
He continued: "We wish to salute the individual acts of heroism and selflessness that are emerging, including from crew, rescue services and the people of Giglio who have thrown open their homes to the survivors."
"The ITF is ready to offer any help it can to its colleagues in Italy, where the trade unions are playing an important support role in helping those affected."
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Captain Francesco Schettino
The only fact that is certain in the Costa Concordia disaster is the universal truth of all maritime disasters... human mistakes were made by multiple individuals.
As discussed in the first part of this article "Costa Concordia - The 3 Most Fatal Mistakes," Captain Schettino has received a lot of criticism in the mainstream press and possibly, even more from industry insiders including gCaptain for abandoning ship before the last passenger was safe. Still, an important question is not being asked... what did he do right?
Why didn't he return to the ship after falling into a lifeboat?
In the now famous audio tapes, after falling from the embarcation deck into a lifeboat (a fact that, due to the list of the ship and impact of the grounding remains a remote possibility), the port captain ordered the captain to climb a ladder and board the ship he had just fallen from. This order makes little sense. During an emergency, the captain is the "On Scene Commander" and it's his job to direct the crews emergency response efforts. This job, however, does not consist of physical action... he can not (should not!) attempt any rescues himself. Instead his job is to deploy assets and communicate to his team. A job he can do perfectly well from a lifeboat.
Maneuvering a lifeboat to the stern of the ship, climbing a ladder and attempting to crawl hundreds of feet toward the bridge would take a long time - time in which he couldn't command the response - and would have put his life in grave danger.
There is a reason in which fire chief's don't enter burning buildings preferring instead to set up a command trailer blocks from disaster. In a disaster situation you do not want the person-in-charge, the one with the most experience or the person who must remain calm - the chief - to be lost. Therefore, the order for the captain to return to the ship was a mistake made by the port and the decision to ignore the "order" was the correct action to take.
The MAYDAY - or Lack Thereof
Another piece of criticism was that Captain Schettino did not call a mayday and load the lifeboats immediately after the collision. While even experts agree this was a big mistake, it seems quite apparent that he did not know the extent of the damage to his ship. Ships are difficult to sink and the safest place for people in maritime emergencies (especially in cold water) is aboard the ship. Further, panic is the most dangerous element in cruise ship disasters so, while we don't condone his calm demeanor in the moments after hitting the rock, there are probably good reasons that he remained calm.
In the opinion of most experts surveyed by gCaptain, the biggest loss of life was a direct result of her "Sideways Grounding" and not the initial collision with the rocks. Provided that the ship was not rapidly sinking it is possible that a MAYDAY, through the panic of passengers and the "orders from shore" (orders we have already established as faulty), could have caused more harm than good.
Remain Calm
It's an established fact that in most disasters the biggest loss of life can be most directly attributed to panic. Panic kills! In essence the anger and resentment expressed by media and the general public can be attributed to one fault; Captain Schettino did not live up to the stately image of a captain!
The days of Captains flogging crew are well behind us, but the image of a captain as a strong, knowledgeable, leader remain burned in the conscience of the general public. Yet the most effective captains today do not flog their crew, order reckless maneuvers or stand at attention in their uniforms. The most effective captains effectively manage problems and make decisions based on pressures placed on them by ship owners, passengers and crew.
The captain's primary job is to exude the calm presence needed to manage the disaster effectively. While Schettino may lose points for not "going down with the ship," the evidence points to the fact that, if anything, he did remain clam amid the chaos around him.
Whether he was ACTUALLY calm, or blindly ignorant of what was going on like a deer-in-the-headlights, is not certain. It does seem apparent though that he did not "freak out" either vocally or physically.
The Company Shares Fault
Why did the captain "showboat" so close to shore?
It's the company's (Carnival Cruise) position that "showboating" goes against company policy and is strictly prohibited, but in today's world of satellite communication and AIS ship tracking, only a negligent company doesn't know where their ships have traveled and their current location around the world. In short, Carnival knew that it's ships have been "showboating," and if they didn't, they are negligent for not effectively managing their ships.
Dramatic scenery and "showboating" close to shore may be dangerous but it also sells tickets and sources who have worked for Carnival tell gCaptain that the company, although officially prohibiting maneuvers close to shore, encourages this behavior. Even if this information proves false, the fact remains that this is not the first time a Carnival cruise ship has "showboated," and in not effectively monitoring their vessels and the actions of its captains, the company shares in the negligence which led to this collision.
Not only that, but the Captain is by definition, the "Owner's Representative" on board. Blaming the captain may put the the ship owner in a precarious liability position. Similar in the way Exxon found themselves when they tried to distance themselves from Captain Hazelwood from the Exxon Valdez.
Where Is The CEO?
The actions of any crew are dictated and, more importantly modeled after, the conduct of the Captain. He is the leader and the man in charge. But one ship is just a small part of a fleet and it's not the individual captains of history that are remembered for their act of courage, it's the Admirals who send fleets ships into harms way. As this is true with Navies it's also true of corporate leaders. This is not the first incident experienced by Carnival Cruise ships, their recent safety record is a lead actor in this drama regardless of whether the media focuses on it or not, and it's unlikely to be their last.
Change happens from the top. The Captain may have fled the scene after the grounding of his ship, but Carnival Cruise Line CEO (and owner of the Miami Heat) Micky Arinson, never showed. It's important that a captain takes responsibility for his faults, and if possible, remains aboard until everyone is safe, but it's even more important that the CEO takes responsibility and witnesses the disaster in which his company policies certainly played a role.
The Lives Saved
The collision tore a large hole in the Costa Concordia which eventually robbed her of propulsion and steering. Thousands of passengers panicked as the ship leaned over on her starboard side. Lives here lost, that fact is clear, but most were saved.
Did the Captain make foolish mistakes? Yes.
Could he have handled the emergency better? Yes.
The answer to those questions are clear, but in the Captain's defense much had to go right that night for so many people to be saved. The crew training, the ship's emergency equipment and the company procedures all made a significant and positive impact on the lives of those saved. It's easy to be a critic. For that reason and more I want to conclude this post with a statement of thanks to the countless people who did the right thing that night, the people who made a difference, people trained under Schettino's watch. Well done!
Just Don't Forget
Critical thinking is important in the process of learning from our mistakes. There were a great deal of bad decisions made last Friday night, however a number of other decisions made by Captain Schettino, Micky Arinson and most certainly the ship's crew, saved many lives that day.
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Important Upcoming Events for
AOS USA Members
AOS-USA Annual Meeting
Houston, Texas
May 15-17, 2012
XXIII World Congress of the Apostleship of the Sea
November 19-23, 2012 @ The Vatican
AOS World Congress Invitation
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