The new Netflix doc on the Costa Concordia shipwreck is instructional, if alone from the light it sheds on hitherto details that ~ whilst easily overlooked ~ may well have proven to be decisive. The most telling of these is the fact that in the given situation the captain ordered a turn in one direction that the helmsman pursued in the wrong direction for over forty seconds.
Regular readers will recall how ~ and it wasn't me that discovered this ~ the brain is divided into two hemispheres connected by something surgeons tell each other not to cut through no matter how inviting it looks. This is thought to lead to the left-versus-right confusion that has plagued aircraft accidents from the get-go; although it is less commonly referred to in maritime accidents that tend not to have been analysed in the same sort of forensic detail.
One reason it may have been overlooked for centuries at sea is for being considered something that was simply not done or a failure of character. You may recall though how one among the founding fathers of what is called 'human factors' in aviation was inspired by flying bombers line astern down the Bay of Biscay to ferry them to North Africa: the one in front turning right and never being seen again.
Besides this, it is obvious that Costa were either active or passive witnesses to 'sail-bys' during which you waved to your mistress, and not least because they'd either have enjoyed such forms of showboating themselves or else considered it to be the 'right stuff'.
in common with the airline industry the captain, helmsman and four others aboard were charged while management would 'tut-tut' their way to daily lives. My guess is the helmsman would have been charged for turning the wheel the wrong way, the way we used to hit kids at school if they'd made a mistake.
But can you think of another accident that might have involved such an error? Yes, that of the Titanic! There's a suggestion the captain's order to turn to starboard may have been confused with a conventional 'tiller' order commanding a lever connecting the rudder conventionally to be driven to the right so as to steer the ship to the left.
We're here to think about design in general and boats in particular though aren't we and more taken by the fact that 'Full Reverse' reduced the effectiveness of a turn in either direction? For this I'll need to take you over to the kitchen worktop, for that's what it's for, to examine our scale model of the ship where you'll see that unusually it had three propellers, one of which dedicated to 'washing' the rudder to maximum effect.
'Full Ahead' might therefore have avoided the 'berg as experts suggest, though had the engines been able to be telegraphed separately then 'Full Astern' on the mains and 'Full Ahead' on the central would have had them doing doughnuts around it.
Most experts thus agree nowadays that had Colin designed the Titanic, we'd all be a lot happier.
