Bigger boats may require revised maps

I have this suspicion that the captain of the cruise ship that just crashed and the authorities who say that hazards are marked on nautical maps may both be right.

Cruise ships are getting bigger and bigger, starting to get aircraft carrier sized. The bigger a ship gets, the further under the water it is going to go.

Makers of water charts have to make a decision when they chart things about what is a hazard and what isn’t.

I’m not sure what their standards of practice are, but I would expect that, depending on when charts are drafted, the specs may vary.

When is something too deep to be listed as a hazard? 10 meters? 50 meters? 100 meters? The draught listed for the Costa Concordia is 8.5 meters, I presume that is empty.

This kind of accident happens from time to time, usually not with the same dramatic effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nautical_chart

I would think that key things to look for would be how old a chart is and the specifications at the time, along with the reputation of the chart provider. Maybe what is needed is some kind of Google earth thing for the sea that goes over every inch of sea that is close to ports or shipping lanes and verifies everything with sonar.

There could be interesting tort issues here, if an uncharted obstacle was hit. They should be able to backtrack (I am assuming a $600 million ship has some kind of ongoing GPS tracking that is retained) to approximately the spot of impact.

If the captain went into charted waters that are not the typical route, is that negligent? If you use the route that all the other big ships are using the chance of hitting something should be negligible. Are you entitled to rely on the charts?

Whether there is any requirement in shipping to file a travel plan, like a plane would have to file a flight plan, I don’t know.

Chart makers I wouldn’t expect to have to anticipate future changes in technology and increased ship size.

Then there is the issue of the captain’s choice to head to shallow waters. Whether that makes him a hero or goat is hard to say. I’m assuming that there are enough lifeboats for all the people on board and it may have been better to get everybody on immediately.

On the other hand, I suppose there was a risk if anybody got trapped inside as the chance of rescue would be minimal if the boat was going to go down. I don’t know how long it takes to get those boats into the water.

Poor crew training may have been a factor in creating chaos.

Of course there is an issue of not knowing what was going on. It is a “fog of war” kind of situation.

If you are in waters where you shouldn’t be able to hit anything, and suddenly the ship shudders and gets an electrical problem, it is going to take precious minutes to figure out what that means. Did one of the engines kak out, did you just get hit by another boat (including somebody’s shallow submarine, you don’t really know at the outset what is going on. Lacking experience in what that means, it may be hard to interpret what those signs mean.

The first three deaths are people that jumped into the water rather than wait for the lifeboats. Cold water can kill in under ten minutes, and can cause an instant heart attack, so the movie inspired diving into the sea was misconceived.

It’s interesting that rock is actually embedded in the ship. The rock piece looks a little pointy and the general reports don’t suggest the type of impact that one would expect from hitting a rock wall or the main part of a reef, so it was probably just jutting up.

I have to wonder if there is some way to idiot-proof large craft.

We build styrofoam not to sink but not billion dollar boats. The old reed, oil and bitumen boats from thousands of years ago (including allegedly the ark) were practically unsinkable.

Most modern boats work on a cheat of physics, that they can keep enough air in that an object that is heavier than water can stay afloat. Systems of bulkheads have improved this in larger boats so that areas can be shut off. But the problem remains that if enough water gets in, down it goes.

Now if all bulkhead doors had to be closed except if somebody is stepping through, and the hull were thick and designed to have millions of air pockets, you could probably design a ship that could be gashed for its’ entire length and not go down. A military ship could be designed to take a hit from a regular torpedo and still stay afloat if the munitions don’t explode.

The question is always cost, but when you lose a boat that big, and face lawsuits, and probably lose a lot of business on the rest of your fleet, that adds up too.

Something about these vertical ships never did look quite right. They look too top heavy, like they are ready to tip over. If they are bigger from side to side and more squat they might be safer. Fuel costs may go up if there is more drag. It might also be harder to get a broader ship into harbour. Oh well.

There maybe needs to be some form of chart certification, confirming that an area has been sonar checked on a meter by meter basis, and outside of main shipping lines, make the standard something like 5o meters certified minimum depth.  Splitting hairs about whether you should be able to just make it is an unnecessary risk.  Maybe the passengers don’t get as good a view.  Oh well.

In geologically active areas it may be especially important to have a large margin of error.  If a flow of magma bumps something 5 meters higher you don’t want to have a problem.   Earthquakes may also shift areas several feet higher.

One thing I wonder about is whether these big vessels have some kind of sonar going at all times.  That doesn’t cost much and the ship could automatically alert crew if an obstacle is approaching.