Cruise Ship Tips Over

HEAVEN is where:
The police are British
The chefs Italian
The mechanics are German
The lovers are French
and it's all run by the Swiss

HELL is where:
The police are German
The chefs are British
The mechanics are French
The lovers are Swiss
and it's all run by the Italians!!

Quote: MrV

This sad incident fans the flames of ancient prejudices, e.g. "Italian man = histrionic COWARD,"

Ancient prejudices confront modern reality. Ships flags are ALL flags of convenience. Crews are always a polyglot. Decades of experience don't count for nuttin' if you sail too close to shallow waters and tear a chunk out of the bottom of the ship: there will still be a ships officer telling you the "electrical problem" has been fixed and you may now all return to your cabin. She may be Italian, Greek, or Whatever. It makes no difference. There will always be misinformation and the senior officers will always trip into the lifeboats.

A flurry of cell phone calls to relatives took place and one relative phoned the police who contacted the Harbor Master who apparently radioed the ship to learn that there was an electrical problem which they expected to have fixed in twenty minutes. The ship's officer said nothing about an impact, a holed bottom, a leak or a list, an order to don life-jackets or to launch lifeboats.

Harbor Master reported he did not trust the information received from the ships officer.

Discovery Network just aired a special about the ship that tipped
over last month. Lots of video shot by passengers onboard. The best
part was a sound bite of the Coast Guard officer screaming at the
ships captain who had abandoned the boat. He was telling him he
had to take a lifeboat back to the ship and co-ordinate the rescue.
The captain was reticent to do so. And because they were screaming in Italian,
it was even more entertaining. Ah, the Italians, what can you say
that hasn't been said a million times since WWII ended..