Premium paid to experience a relic.. along of the lines of the Titanic..

Which cruise ship company is offering this?:D

Heh heh... let's just say thankfully it's not Costa. I've sailed with the same captain before, he seems like a man with significantly better judgement. Then again, he is French. He may just ram the wreck of the Concordia just to prove a point. :)

Hopefully your captain stays on course so you'll be several miles away. Also if you are heading intoi Civi, it might still be dark out.

The itinerary shows that we sail out of Portofino at 6PM and head south. I am guessing the wreck will be lit by the ships working the salvage operation.

Unless your Captain diverts from the norm, you may see only the loom of lights hidden behind Giglio's "Height of land".

I pulled out my old "Sailing Directions" for the Western Med, 50 years old, salvaged from a decommissioned Navy ship, but provided to my ship long ago, so that we might know what to expect from commercial vessels. An aircraft carrier dodges about at high speed, poking its bow into the wind for extended periods every 1 1/2 hours or so, and having some reasonable feel for probable course changes of traffic in the vicinity.

Genoa, La Spezia, Rappallo/Portofino/Sta. Margarita routing to Cittavechia commonly used a passage to seaward of both Elba and Giglio due to traffic, etc.. Any time saved by inshore sailing was likely to require reduced speed.

No cruise line and no Captain really wants to remind you of the perils of the sea, and a really big ship hard aground on its beam ends is an embarrassment to the profession.

You would think with technology nowadays, that computers would prevent a grounding accident like Costa from happening..

When the Captain had the conn (AKA "was driving the hulk"), waited too long before turning and then didn't put the pods/rudder hard over, not sensing the ship was already "in extremis", all the flashing lights and loud alarms from the computers and other electronic navigation aids were for naught.

As with many, perhaps most individuals, mariners and landsmen, all the warnings and cautionary tales around can't keep them from running aground on the rocks and shoals of life.

With alarms on.. what was the Costa captain on? Wow.. amazing..

Perhaps the captain was intoxicated and didn't want to get caught redhanded.. thus bailing ship..

Ouch.. sounded like the tail was dragging right and left on the runway when landing..

What was that beeping noise in the background?

The gear warning horn. :)

When the throttle is at idle and the gear is not down, an alarm will sound. When pilot workload is high or in the case of the video, "sterile cockpit" was not followed, it's easy to not hear the warning. That being said, it was a perfect gear up landing.

A heartwarming article in the Telegraph:

The Telegraph:
Costa Concordia: divers launch rescue mission for boy's teddy bear
3:56PM GMT 09 Feb 2012

Would have helped to launch the rescue mission earlier, to save a few more lives..

But a nice gesture.

What the hell are you talking about?

One of the entertainment shows was previewing the documentary on National Geographic starting tomorrow called Italian Cruise Ship Disaster. Apparently they use lots of passenger supplied video.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/...-abandon-ship/