It seems that the world views the Concordia through a prism of fact, myth and fantasy that surrounds the Titanic, largely because of the popular movie that came out in 1997 and will be re-released in 3D this year.
Virtually everyone who has seen the movie has thought about what they would have done during such a disaster—and now the Concordia allows us to update and refresh those thoughts.
Are such comparisons to a 100-year-old tragedy fair? Accurate?
There is one comparison between the Concordia and Titanic that appears to be correct: Both were disasters affected by human error.
Please go through the following facts and state the similarities and the differences between the Titanic and the Concordia
The Titanic was the biggest ship built to date in England at that time—and the Concordia was the biggest ship built so far in Italy. One crashed into an iceberg, the other, a reef or rock.
The Concordia was slightly larger (952 feet to the Titanic's 883 feet) and both had a top speed of 23 knots.
Ominously, both had issues with their christening, and believers in superstition may attribute the ships' tragedies to it.
Before a ship's maiden voyage, it's common for a dignitary to "christen" the vessel by breaking a bottle of champagne on the hull for good luck.
The Titanic was never christened. The Concordia was christened during a ceremony when the ship came online, but the champagne bottle never broke. After each tragedy, people wondered whether the lack of a proper christening was a bad omen.
Christened in 2006,
the Concordia was the largest and most luxurious in the Costa cruise fleet, boasting bars, restaurants, a gym, large spa and several lavish suites.In its day, the Titanic had similar amenities—although there were more severe class differences on the Titanic, and the chasm between first- and third-class passengers was enforced by class-only eating, sitting and mingling areas. In today's cruising world, the passengers in the $199 cabins on the weekend cruises out of Miami can, and do, sun themselves alongside the folks in the $3,000 suites.
The Titanic had 2,207 people on board; the Concordia about 4,200. The Titanic was much smaller: 46,328 tons compared with the Concordia's 114,500 tons.
Safety standards for large passenger ships grew out of a convention in 1914, two years after the Titanic disaster—which means that all modern-day cruise ships, including the Concordia, should have benefited from the lessons learned from the Titanic. The rules eventually were adopted by the International Maritime Organization, an agency of the United Nations.
Ships are required to have public address systems for announ
cements to passengers, and lifeboats must be at least partially enclosed. They also must hold weekly "abandon ship" and fire drills.Lifeboats also are required to be capable of being loaded, launched and maneuvered away from the ship within 30 minutes of the Master's signal to abandon ship.
People aboard the Titanic didn't panic because the ship listed only a few degrees. There weren't enough lifeboats for all of the passengers aboard and some lifeboats left without being full.
"It's amazing that 100 years later, we're still arguing about how many lifeboats are needed, what kind of training the crew had and what the evacuation procedures were," said Bob Jarvis, a maritime law professor at Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "One-hundred years later, we still don't do a good job getting passengers ready for a disaster."Many passengers aboard the Concordia have complained the crew didn't give them good directions on evacuating and waited so long to lower the lifeboats that many couldn't be released because the ship was listing so heavily.
Some passengers also have complained that the Concordia's captain, Francesco Verusio, abandoned the cruise liner before all his passengers had escape
d. The Titanic's captain, Edward Smith, died the night the ship sank. Some historians say he went down with the boat.A century ago, people thought the Titanic was unsinkable because it was so large and mighty. Today, people marvel that a ship like the Concordia could have run aground while sailing a routine course.
"To see a ship like this in 2012, with all the sophisticated navigation equipment, doing something that it does every week, you don't expect that today," Jarvis said.
source: NYDispatch
