Vada a bordo, cazzo!

April 24, 2021 11:27 AM

”When she premiered, the tradional bottle of champagne bounced right off the side instead of smashing. A bad omen, but... Nothing could go wrong on Friday the 13th of January 2012, on the 100th year anniversary of The Titanic, on a ship that is also only safety rated for two-compartment flooding. Especially when you have a five-star, max-level-rated captain like Francesco Schettino, a man who mysteriously rose from Head of Security to the position of Captain in just a couple of years... He knows exactly what to do in an emergency.”

The Cost of Concordia (SLYT)
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey (10 comments total)

This is the most insane story. I just saw the first few minutes, because I have work to do, but WOW, this is crazy.
posted by mumimor at 12:31 PM on April 24, 2021

I'm a big fan of Car Seat Headrest's Ballad of the Costa Concordia which uses this disaster as an allegory for being a general fuck-up in life.

And maybe you think
I'll learn from my mistake
But not this time
It's just gonna break me.
posted by anhedonic at 12:39 PM on April 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

100 years after the Titanic sinking? Just a bit on the nose...Well done video.

Way back previously on how it nearly turned into another epic tragedy on the, well, Titanic scale.
posted by blue shadows at 2:16 PM on April 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

I was in Rome for 5 weeks when this occcured and it was totally bonkers watching it along with the person I was staying with. I wish I had bought one of the many, many tshirts immortalizing the event and that beautiful phrase, 'vada a bordo, cazzo'.
posted by lesbiassparrow at 2:35 PM on April 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

So I didn't think I would watch the whole thing but then I did! It was gripping (and well done). I remember when it happened but had forgotten most of the details.

So who paid the 1.2 billion to refloat and salvage that thing? And what about that ridiculously inadequate fine they gifted the cruise line omg. They hired a guy who had crashed TWO ships before! How did he get to captain a ship after the first one (not to mention the part about he was a security guard only 2 years earlier)? Dozens of people died as a result of pure incompetence. So. Infuriating.
posted by Glinn at 3:55 PM on April 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

So, I took the whole drug helicopter thing with a grain of salt but it does make you wonder if some part of the captain's incompetence was calculated to wait long enough to ensure the payload was off the boat. You also have to wonder if his unusual promotion pathway was somehow tied to his value as a drug runner.

Either way that was a nutty ride, thanks for posting.
posted by simra at 5:35 PM on April 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

That was great. But it missed possibly my favorite part of the saga where the folks from the Captain Francesco Schettino's home town, Meta, defended him at length. They are quoted as saying things like "Anyone who knows Franco knows that he is a great, great sailor, a great commander" or a quick search turned up folks hanging banners up in support.
posted by zenon at 6:49 PM on April 24, 2021 [2 favorites]

I just recently discovered the excellent Causality podcast by John Chidgey who did an episode on the Costa Concordia back in 2016. (Weirdly, Chidgey's voice is almost identical to that of the narrator of the film above.)
posted by neuron at 7:27 PM on April 24, 2021 [1 favorite]

I also really like engineering disaster podcast Well There's Your Problem's episode on the Costa Concordia, though the Internet Historian take gets deeper into the characters and the trial aftermath.
posted by sixohsix at 8:25 AM on April 25, 2021 [3 favorites]

If anyone wants to get extra nerdy about this, here's a reaction video by a navigation officer adding some details and context.
posted by dnash at 11:35 AM on April 25, 2021 [1 favorite]