Talk:Costa Concordia

Diesel-electric or Electric

Britmax, diesel-electric is a transmission system that includes a diesel engine coupled to an electrical generator. Writing the power value of a diesel-electric system implies a power plant of the same power. On the Costa Concordia there is no such relation. On the one side, we have power plants that together generate about 75,6 MW(e) electrical power and on the other side we have two "electric" propellers, each 21 MW(e), without any sourcing preference from the 6 power plants. If you write 6 × Wärtsilä 12V46C; 75,600 kilowatts (101,400 hp) combined and propulsion Diesel-electric; two shafts (2 × 21 MW), it looks like on board the Costa Concordia we had a total of 75,6 + 42 = 117,6 MW ...--Robertiki (talk) 12:59, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean? The "installed power" lists the combined rating of the ship's power plant (six Wärtsilä generating sets), which provides power for all shipboard systems, and the "propulsion" lists the output of the two electrical motors turning the propellers. There is a clear distinction of power-producing and power-consuming components, so there's no danger of making a mistake like that. Tupsumato (talk) 13:38, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

mistakes

Mistakes made by the captain, not this artical. I was a Hull Maintenance Technician Petty officer, second class in the Navy and damage control is something I'm well versed. Other than the obvious one of going to close to shore the mistakes were many. Dropping the anchor was a HUGE mistake. By trapping them in the shallow water the ship hit bottom and rolled on its round bottom. This roll prevented the damage control teams from getting to the damage area. since they can't get there, they can't seal the watertight doors and stop the flooding. the increse in weight compounded the problem. What the captain needed to do was before he lost power was get into deep water. He wouldn't have rolled, the flooding would have been lessened because the crew would have been able to do thier job. Fuel could have been transfered to the other side of the ship to counteract the extra weight. They may have sank but it would have taken hours and everone could have made a nice orderly evacuation. Herogamer (talk) 18:18, 11 October 2012 (UTC)

Did they have manuals in the Navy which you had to read to improve your job skills? The Army did through my entire 13+ year career, called Technical Manuals & Field Manuals. The reason I ask is because of the many inconsistencies in your remark, as compared with the wording of the article itself. The anchors were found almost directly under the bow with lots of loose chain around them, i.e. they were dropped AFTER the ship had already grounded, resulting in an almost immediate starboard list. Although the chains had no tension on them, meaning they actually did nothing, the Captains intention MAY have been to keep the ship from sliding into deep water. The ship floated with only bare minimum power for over an hour, with ONLY rudder control to counteract any wind/current movement. During this time it was already listing 20 degrees & sinking. I'm not sure if the watertight doors would even close at 20 degrees, nor am I sure if they COULD be closed with no main power at all. Would that have even mattered with a 160 feet long gash, 1/5th of the whole waterline length of the vessel, up to 26 feet tall. The ship was dieing, the engine room was the FIRST major section which almost instantly flooded, killing the generators & engines. How do you plan on transferring fuel fast enough to equalize the helluvalot-per-minute of water gushing through 160 feet of the other side .... hand-pumps or battery-power? The CHIEF of the Italian Coast Guard stated that only a fortunate coincidence of wind, tide, & current grounded the ship near shore, rather than it sinking completely in deep water. But you're gonna keep it out there, 2/3d's mile from shore, at night, in January-cold water, with near 1/2 of lifeboats unlaunchable, and MAYBE 10% normal power, while your boat with 4,200+ souls on board is sinking like a fish with a cannon-hole in it's middle. Rather than 32 presumed dead & 64 injured, your plan will most likely result in at least 10X that many .... or worse. Would you stay inside your 1-story home on the coast during a Cat.5 hurricane IF you had over an hour to drive your bicycle to the top of a nearby hill? Might ought to re-read those manuals I mentioned at first. While you may have been great at welding, I'm not sure you quite understand the do's & don'ts of a near-dead sinking boat. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.159.69.146 (talk) 00:24, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

Infobox cleanup

I'm not going to start and edit war, but it would be nice to get an explanation why my edit was reverted with the reason "Although currently unused, this article is expected to undergo another round of editing in the coming months...". The class names are hyphenated as per our naming convention and the name of the ship should be in italic as per our infobox guide. Also, non-relevant fields may be removed (the ship had no ramps, just like it had no sail plan or ice class, or aircraft facilities!), not to mention that there isn't even a |ship flag= field in the general characteristics section. Why do such minor stylistic fixes need to wait for "another round of editing in the coming months"?

I admit removing the length between perpendiculars might have been a mistake, but in my opinion the distance from the fore of the stem to the rudder axis is more or less meaningless information for most people. What they need to know is the length of the ship, not some rule-based measurements. After all, we do not need to include everything in the article, just information that has meaning. Tupsumato (talk) 20:14, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Auxiliary propulsion

Most large ships have auxiliary propulsion that allows them to be docked without the need for tugboats. For docking operations main propulsion is shut down and auxiliary thrusters are used to maneuver the ship sideways against a pier. If the Concordia had this capability, it should be described in the Propulsion section. This would explain how the captain could claim that he maneuvered the ship onto the shoreline where it now lies. If the Concordia had auxiliary or emergency electrical power, it would also have had some maneuvering capability. It hardly seems likely that a lucky combination of winds and tides would have placed the ship onshore. Grounding the ship is what saved so many lives and the article should reflect this. Virgil H. Soule (talk) 18:33, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, but we can't just speculate on it. Are there any reliable sources that discuss this? HiLo48 (talk) 21:18, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Maneuvering thrusters are not usually called "auxiliary propulsion". Also, the main propulsion is not "shut down" during docking since that's the only way to move the ship or maintain position in the longitudinal direction. Also^2, the power requirements of the bow and stern thrusters are so high that emergency power alone is not enough to turn them on - you need the main generators to run them, and in that case you should've had at least some of the main propulsion as well. Tupsumato (talk) 22:40, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Present/past tense

The article still refers to the ship in the present tense (Costa Concordia IS a Concordia-class cruise ship, etc). As the ship is beyond economic repair and will be scrapped when it's salvaged, wouldn't it be more appropriate to say WAS instead? Her useful service life has been cut short and she'll never serve as an active ship again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.31.125.253 (talk) 22:03, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Until the ship has been declared constructive total loss by a reliable source, we will stick to the present tense. Also, in my opinion, Costa Concordia is still a ship, albeit a wrecked one. Tupsumato (talk) 22:35, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Disagree. The ship is currently being partially cut-up to allow recover of the wreckage, and scrapping is planned to begin in a few months. There is no chance of a salvage and rebuilding. "was" should be used. --Jollyroger (talk) 22:10, 20 March 2013 (UTC)