Winston Churchill once quipped: “There are three things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship. First, their cuisine is unsurpassed. Second, their service is superb. And, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first.”
Prophetically, in January while the crew and passengers of the Costa Concordia were struggling for their lives, their Italian captain fled to a lifeboat and received that infamous order from the Italian Coast Guard: “Schettino, get the ___ back on board”
Go down with the ship?
Under U.S. law a captain’s misconduct that results in deaths is criminal. Washington State Ferries require that the captain stay in the pilot house until all passengers are evacuated. Ship captains usually stay with the ship because, if a ship is abandoned, anyone who can tow it to port is entitled to an extravagant salvage award.
When to evacuate: fire, collision or grounding.
– Collision: This is a significant risk on Kingston-Edmonds. Our ferries are divided into five or six watertight compartments and will stay afloat with two adjacent compartments flooded. The doors between compartments can be remotely closed from the pilot house, even without power.
– Fires: The biggest fire threat is from a vehicle onboard. Diesel tank-trucks are allowed onboard because of diesel’s high flashpoint temperature. Propane and gasoline tank-trucks are not. Other vehicles may carry 12 gallons of gas or propane in two portable containers.
– Grounding: Grounding in the central Sound would be on soft shoaling bottoms and riders would just have to wait for the ferry to drive or be pulled off. When Walla Walla grounded in 1981 and tugs couldn’t get her off after several hours, the passengers walked onto a barge to wait for tour boats. Elsewhere groundings have led to sinking. In 2006, BC Ferries’ the Queen of the North hit a rock and sunk in about one hour after striking a rock with the loss of two passengers.
– When a casualty occurs: The Captain mans the bridge while the mate directs the crew. The WSF operations center musters experts to advise the captain. For example, using the ferry’s electronic draft sensors a naval architect can calculate how long the ship will stay afloat.
Evacuation takes place in three steps.
– Ready: Passengers are assembled and the situation is explained. Besides sweeping the ship for passengers the crew asks families and groups if there’s anyone not accounted for.
– Set: Passengers go with crew members to the life raft stations.
– Go: When the captain decides to launch the life rafts, a certified crew member goes into the raft and another mans the loading slide. The maximum time allowed to launch and load a raft is 30 minutes.
The four 150-person life rafts on our jumbo ferries accommodate fewer than the people on board on a busy summer sailing or a Bainbridge commuter run. Even though there are enough lifejackets, in Puget Sound we’d succumb to hypothermia between two to four hours. So WSF has a plan to evacuate passengers to a second ferry by using their rescue boats to tow rafts back and forth. Several years ago crews practiced this procedure for a week even using actors to play “difficult” passengers, and the Coast Guard approved the plan. Where the response boat can’t get there in time, the ferries carry life rafts for 100 percent of the passengers and crew.
Hmm …
Our Elwha grounded when the captain was cruising by a lady passenger’s house. The Queen of the North hit a rock when two crew members, allegedly boyfriend and girlfriend, were squabbling on the bridge. The Costa Concordia hit a rock when the captain was showing off to friends ashore.
