[LJ Idol] Ship-Shape
Written for LJ Idol round 13, challenge prompt ‘Current Events.’ Non-fiction. This piece takes its inspiration from the grounding of the Costa Concordia cruise ship on January 13 and is dedicated to the memory of those who are dead and missing.
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Ship-Shape
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For one hour we have complete access to the Bridge, the undivided attention of the First Officer, and the most panoramic view of Cartagena, but I can only think of one question. “How often do you leave people behind?”
It’s something of an urban myth among cruisers; if someone doesn’t make it back to the ship on time they run the risk of being left behind, forced to meet the ship in the next port on their own expense. The Celebrity Equinox’s First Officer is named Nick. He is young and Greek and stands with perfect posture, and smiles to let me know he doesn’t mind answering my question. “It is up to the discretion of the Captain, but there are all sorts of factors. How many people are not yet aboard, our time and distance to the next port, or how it would affect our fuel consumption.” I hadn’t thought about that last one. “It doesn’t happen often, only about once every ten cruises or so.”
My family has cruised several times, but this is the first time we’ve ever toured the Bridge. It’s a special excursion with limited space, and costs a little extra, but we get the chance to see just where all the magic happens. From the outside, the Bridge is fairly easy to pick out-it sits on Deck Ten, with a wall of windows and two wings jutting out from each side of the ship. To get to the Bridge we walked through an unremarkable door in a hallway lined with staterooms. The closest rooms have balconies that can look right into the Bridge. There was a woman out on her balcony during our tour, finding us far more interesting than her view of the harbor.
Inside, things are most decidedly ship-shape. There’s a main console that dominates the center of the room-with switches, buttons, displays, and a real captain’s wheel-and two auxiliary stations on the wings, overlooking the side of the ship. There are even two panes of glass set into the floor, so the captain can look down when steering the ship into place in the harbor itself. There are a few adjoining office rooms and a set of armchairs that nobody even glanced at, and us. Ten people on the tour, and there are about as many officers and crew to match us.
The crew clustered around a stack of maps; I recognized our port and the shape of Columbia on the intricately detailed surface. Captain Michael Karatzas pushed a little miniature ship across the pages of each map, going over the entire route with the officers and asking them questions about the weather, sea conditions, and number of other ships that would be docked at St. Maarten in two days time. None of this was for our benefit; somewhere in the Bridge were paper maps for every path the ship could sail.
We left Cartagena right at five o’clock, the sun starting its descent and making the water glimmer around us. The Captain had command of the entire vessel, the thousands of tons and nineteen decks, huge and hulking, all controlled by a single tiny joystick on the auxiliary station. He pressed it down and like an arcade game the ship responded, beginning to inch away from the dock. Away from our parking spot, he swiveled us around in a perfect circle and sent us on our way.
I had never seen any cruise ship’s Captain up close before-you know that they’re there, of course, but with thousands of passengers every week the officers can’t possibly meet everyone. There have been serious Captains and ones with great jokes, and even one that could sing and play the guitar. Ours was calm and very, very cool-he had a cup of coffee delivered from the specialty restaurant and sipped it from time to time, the sun reflecting off of his sunglasses when he glanced around the harbor.
The day after we disembarked from our ship, the Costa Concordia ran aground off of the Italian island of Giglio. This ship is about the same size as the Equinox with similar numbers of passengers and crew, and was also very new, built in the luxurious style of so many of the modern vessels. From a distance, the ships look majestic, and up close they are even more marvelous. To see the pictures in the news, of the Concordia half submerged and slanted at an unnatural angle, is frightening. How could something like this happen, mere days after I witnessed the utmost precision and professionalism on the Bridge of a similar vessel?
I followed the reports of this event and the record of the bridge itself-although the black box that stores all of the proceedings and conversations has been recovered-has several slightly differing retellings, the passenger’s accounts mirror the chaos they experienced. The blame, the route, and the reasons differ, but what is clear is that no safety drill had taken place before the ship started to shake and tilt, and not long after that the power went out. Many of the passengers were at dinner.
I’ve sat-and stood-through many a muster drill, where passengers gather in their emergency meeting point and a muster station leader tells them what to do in an emergency, how to meet their children safely, and the procedures for abandoning ship if necessary. Drills must take place within twenty-four hours of departure but I’ve never experienced nor heard of a ship taking off before the drill had even occurred.
I can imagine the scene. Confusion from both the passengers and crew, minimal communication from the bridge regarding the true nature of the accident. China smashing to the floor, people jolted off-balance, those in the pools or elevators or shops. Old people and young people and families, each speaking different languages. By the time the crew was organized enough to launch the lifeboats, the ship had listed far enough to make deploying some of them impossible.
The accounts are harrowing, from the large, sweeping narrations-passengers helping each other to safety, being unable to see in an unfamiliar territory-to the very personal details: leaving without medicine or identification or even shoes on their feet.
Out of over four thousand total on board, eighteen are confirmed dead and sixteen still missing, and that number has been changing every day since the disaster. Excavation teams have been searching the ship in the darkness, going only by touch to find each missing person. Other teams are making sure the ship’s fuel can be contained to minimally damage the water’s ecosystem. The Captain and First Officer have been arrested, the former additionally facing charges of abandoning the ship while hundreds of passengers were still on board. Those aboard will be compensated, and the full losses Costa and Carnival Corporation will face from this disaster are still unknown. The investigation is still in progress, a patchwork of accounts and accusations from all sides.
A century after the sinking of one of the most famous ocean liners in history, history has been remade, proving that even with countless safety features and precautions, the worst can still happen. I’m cruising again, a year from now, and the next time I board a ship my thoughts will be with those who won’t ever forget the night of January thirteenth.
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To those looking for more information about the Costa Concordia, I’d suggest ABC News (or any other major news provider), this article in particular. Thank you for reading, I love concrit.