For us, one of the keys to living comfortably in the small space of a boat is to reduce clutter and keep our frequently-used items easily accessible. Reducing clutter isn't just for appearances--it also means we can leave the dock on a moments notice without having to spend a half-hour stowing loose items. And if commonly-used items are properly organized and easily accessible, we won't waste time searching for something we've misplaced. The key to keeping things organized is to make it easy--we aim to have systems so that items can be retreived and put away properly with minimal effort. When something is frustrating to access or stow, we're less likely to put it away properly. We try to follow a couple of simple rules: 1) if we spend too much time dealing with a commonly-used item, we find a new place or stowage system for it and 2) if we have to move a less-frequently used item to access a more commonly-used one, we find a new place for that first item.

Stowing items means you need to have a place for them. As much as possible throughout the boat, we added locker doors and made even small dead spaces accessible. Then we tried to make maximul use of those smaller spaces, particularly the ones we'd access most frequently. Three small lockers with shelves in the salon are a convenient place to store keys and other loose items, but the shelves are small compared to the vertical height of the space. To make best use of the storage, we early on added a 4-hook key rack to one and two 3"x6"x2.5" bamboo boxes to another. The bamboo boxes effectively turn one shelf into three.

One place we found frustrating to deal with, but took a while to solve, was the laundry area in the day head area The only convenient space available to store detergent etc was in the open area on the washing machine lid. But this meant we had to move things off every time we opened the lid. It wasn't a huge deal, but it was breaking rule (1). We tried just putting everthing on the floor for the few hours a week when we did laundry, but didn't like that much either--too messy-looking. We had a difficult time finding a storage system that would attach to the louvered door, be big enough to hold detergent bottles, yet not be too tall or deep for the space. Eventually we found these kitchen cabinet organizers. They are designed to hang from a cabinet door, but we removed the hanging part, attached the two together with cable ties, and screwed the whole unit onto the cabinet door. A hook above holds our folding laundry basket. As a separate item we also added a magnet, visible in the upper left of the vertical picture, to hold the dryer door open. When loading and unloading in rougher water, we no longer have to worry about banging our head on the swinging door.

Another rule (1) violation was glove storage in the pilot house wet locker. We'd been just keeping them in a pile on the locker floor, but were always digging through trying to find the right pair. We had a small strip on the door above the louver to install hooks, but needed a way to hang gloves that wouldn't extend above the top of the door. We settled on an eight-hook key rack and these Grip Clips. The clip's non-slip rubber grips hold the gloves well, and they easily hang on the hooks without preventing the door from closing. We expect to find more uses for these clips.

For other organization ideas, see Really Useful Boxes and Galley storage.

 

We purchased our first digital camera, a Canon PowerShot Pro90 IS, in 2002. Many of our pictures are taken from a boat, with the subject often at a distance. So we wanted a long lens to successfully get those distant shots. Since light conditions in the Pacific Northwest can be poor, and we'd often be using a long lens, image stabilization could make the difference between an interesting picture and a missed shot. We decided against an SLR for a couple of reasons: a good image-stabilized SLR lens was expensive back then, on the order of $2,500, and the complete camera packages were heavy and bulky. For our use, we wanted a reasonably compact, lightweight package that was easy to use, carry and stow. A minimal SLR setup, with a body and two lenses, is a fair bit of equipment to carry around. Also, since many interesting shots happen quickly, we might lose them because we didn't have the right lens on for the shot. The early SLRs had an additional disadvantage of not being able to shoot movies. The PowerShot cost about $1,000, was image-stabilized, could record movies, and had a wide zoom range from 37 to 370mm. With an inexpensive camera, we could afford to upgrade it every few years as technology improved, or if we damaged it. Although the PowerShot picture quality wouldn't be as good as an SLR, this seemed like the right way to go for our usage pattern.

Another problem with an expensive SLR camera is that losing or damaging one is a pretty significant financial loss. We frequently take pictures in extreme conditions, in pouring rain or in rough water while taking waves, and have damaged at least two cameras this way. For example, the wave pictured above was taken in a 9-foot dinghy in 40-knot winds off the northwest coast of Vancouver Island, and the one below was taken in the Broughton Archipelago during a winter snowstorm. And here is a video we shot of breaking ice into Princess Louisa Inlet during a winter visit. For the wave picture in particular, we would not have been comfortable taking camera equipment costing more than $4,000 out in those conditions (you might argue that we should not have been comfortable taking ourselves out there either). Ironically, we got a great picture almost because we didn't have good equipment.

 Over the years, capabilities have improved dramatically and prices have fallen. Here's the digital cameras we've owned:

• 2002: Canon PowerShot Pro90 IS, $975, 37-370mm, 2.6 MP
• 2004: Panasonic DMC-FZ10, $800, 35-420mm, 4 MP
• 2005: Panasonic DMC-FZ30, $650, 35-420mm, 8 MP
• 2009: Canon PowerShot SX20 IS, $400, 28-560mm, 12.1 MP
• 2012: Canon PowerShot SX40 HS, $400, 24-840mm, 12.1MP

In addition to lens and image stabilization, big improvements also have been made in quality and speed of electronic focus systems. Our current camera, a Canon PowerShot SX40 HS, is respectively fast, produces good pictures, and has an incredibly wide zoom range from 24-840mm. And at $400, if the camera is damaged by operating in extreme conditions, it’s not the end of the world.

One thing we’ve found valuable is a lens hood. This helps protect the lens, keeping rain and snow off when taking pictures, and, without putting the lens cap on, we can quickly stuff the camera inside a coat for protection from weather or bumping.

We revisited the SLR decision with the second camera, but since then haven't bothered, and have generally just upgraded every few years. You can see the improvements in picture sharpness, color quality and white balance in this collection of our best and favorite pictures taken over the past decade.

 

I maintain a work-related blog mostly focused high-scale services, data center design and operations, server hardware design and optimization, high-scale storage software and hardware systems, flash memory, service design principles, power efficiency and power management at http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/.  Because most of my work centers around making very high-scale services run well, run reliably, and run economically, I occasionally dig into the details behind engineering disasters whether they be human error, poor design, or equipment failure. Most are a combination of multiple failures and, understanding them better may help us learn how to avoid these problems in the systems we build. 

 

The Costa Concordia grounding of January 13^th 2012 caught my attention partly because of the magnitude of the disaster with property losses over a half billion dollars and significant loss of life and partly because I’m a boater myself.

 

It’s not often that I write a blog entry that is potential of value to both readers of this boat blog and my work blog Perspectives but I think this might be such a situation so “Studying the Costa Concordia Grounding” is reposted below.

 

Don't be a show-off. Never be too proud to turn back. There are old pilots and bold pilots, but no old, bold pilots.

 

I first heard the latter part of this famous quote made by US Airmail Pilot E. Hamilton Lee back when I raced cars. At that time, one of the better drivers in town, Gordon Monroe, used a variant of that quote (with pilots replaced by racers) when giving me driving advice. Gord’s basic message was that it is impossible to win a race if you crash out of it.

 

Nearly all of us have taken the odd chance and made some decisions that, in retrospect, just didn’t make sense from a risk vs reward perspective. Age and experience clearly helps but mistakes still get made and none of us are exempt. Most people’s mistakes at work don’t have life safety consequences and their mistakes are not typically picked up widely by the world news services as was the case in the recent grounding of the Costa Concordia cruise ship. But, we all make mistakes.

 

I often study engineering disasters and accidents in the belief that understanding mistakes, failures, and accidents deeply is a much lower cost way of learning.  My last note on this topic was What Went Wrong at Fukushima Dai-1 where we looked at the nuclear release following the 2011 Tohuku Earthquake and Tsunami. 

 

Living on a boat and cruising extensively (our boat blog is at http://blog.mvdirona.com/) makes me particularly interested in the Costa Concordia incident of January 13^th 2012. The Concordia is a 114,137 gross ton floating city that cost $570m when it was delivered in 2006. It is 952’ long, has 17 decks, and is power by 6 Wartsila diesel engines with a combined output of 101,400 horse power. The ship is capable of 23 kts (26.5 mph) and has a service speed of 21 kts. At capacity, it carries 3,780 passengers with a crew of 1,100.

 

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster:

 

The Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia partially sank on Friday the 13th of January 2012 after hitting a reef off the Italian coast and running aground at Isola del Giglio, Tuscany, requiring the evacuation of 4,197 people on board. At least 16 people died, including 15 passengers and one crewman; 64 others were injured (three seriously) and 17 are missing. Two passengers and a crewmember trapped below deck were rescued.

 

The captain, Francesco Schettino, had deviated from the ship's computer-programmed route in order to treat people on Giglio Island to the spectacle of a close sail-past. He was later arrested on preliminary charges of multiple manslaughter, failure to assist passengers in need and abandonment of ship. First Officer Ciro Ambrosio was also arrested.

 

It is far too early to know exactly what happened on the Costa Concordia and, because there was loss of life and considerable property damage, the legal proceedings will almost certainly run for years. Unfortunately, rather than illuminating the mistakes and failures and helping us avoid them in the future, these proceedings typically focus on culpability and distributing blame. That’s not our interest here. I’m mostly focused on what happened and getting all the data I could find on the table to see what lessons the situation yields.

 

A fellow boater, Milt Baker pointed me towards an excellent video that offers considerable data into exactly what happened in the final 1 hour and 30 min. You can find the video at: Grounding of Costa Concordia. Another interesting data source is the video commentary available at: John Konrad Narrates the Final Maneuvers of the Costa Concordia. In what follows, I’ve combined snapshots of the first video intermixed with data available from other sources including the second video.

 

The source data for the two videos above is a wonderful safety system called Automatic Identification System. AIS is a safety system required on larger commercial craft and also used on many recreational boats as well. AIS works by frequently transmitting (up to every 2 seconds for fast moving ships) via VHF radio the ships GPS position, course, speed, name, and other pertinent navigational data. Receiving stations on other ships automatically plot transmitting AIS targets on electronic charts. Some receiving systems are also able to plot an expected target course and compute the time and location of the estimated closest point of approach. AIS an excellent tool to help reduce the frequency of ship-to-ship collisions.

 

Since AIS data is broadcast over VHF radio, it is widely available to both ships and land stations and this data can be used in many ways. For example, if you are interested in the boats in Seattle’s Elliott Bay, have a look at MarineTraffic.com and enter “Seattle” as the port in the data entry box near the top left corner of the screen (you might see our boat Dirona there as well).

 

AIS data is often archived and, because of that, we have a very precise record of the Costa Concordia’s course as well as core navigational data as it proceeded towards the rocks. In the pictures that follow, the red images of the ship are at the ship’s position as transmitted by the Costa Concordia’s AIS system. The black line between these images is the interpolated course between these known locations. The video itself (Costa Concordia Interpolated.wmv) uses a roughly 5:1 time compression.

In this screen shot, you can see the Concordia already very close to the Italian Isol del Giglio. From the BBC report the Captain has said he turned too late (Costa Concordia: Captain Schettino ‘Turned Too Late’). From that article:

 

According to the leaked transcript quoted by Italian media, Capt Schettino said the route of the Costa Concordia on the first day of its Mediterranean cruise had been decided as it left the port of Civitavecchia, near Rome, on Friday.

 

The captain reportedly told the investigating judge in the city of Grosseto that he had decided to sail close to Giglio to salute a former captain who had a home on the Tuscan island. "I was navigating by sight because I knew the depths well and I had done this maneuver three or four times," he reportedly said.

 

"But this time I ordered the turn too late and I ended up in water that was too shallow. I don't know why it happened."

 

In this screen shot of the boat at 20:44:47 just prior to the grounding, you can see the boat turned to 348.8 degrees but the massive 114,137 gross ton vessel is essentially plowing sideways through the water on a course of 332.7 degrees. The Captain can and has turned the ship with the rudder but, at 15.6 kts, it does not follow the exact course steered with inertia tending to widen and straiten the intended turn. 

 

Given the speed of the boat and nearness of shore at this point, the die is cast and the ship is going to hit ground.

 

This screen shot was taken is just past the point of impact. You will note that it has slowed to 14.0 kts. You might also notice the Captain is turning aggressively to the starboard. He has the ship turned to a 8.9 degrees heading whereas the actual ships course lags behind at 356.2 degrees.

 

This screen shot is only 44 seconds after the previous one but the boat has already slowed from 14.0 kts to 8.1 and is still slowing quickly.  Some of the slowing will have come from the grounding itself but passengers report that they heard the boat hard astern after the grounding.

 

You can also see the captain has swung the helm over from the starboard course he was steering trying to avoid the rocks over to port course now that he has struck them. This is almost certainly in an effort to minimize damage. What makes this (possibly counter-intuitive) decision a good one is the ships pivot point is approximately 1/3 of the way back from the bow so turning to port (towards the shore) will actually cause the stern to rotate away from the rocks they just struck.

 

The ship decelerated quickly to just under 6.0 knots but, in the two minutes prior to this screen shot, it has only slowed a further 0.9 kts down to 5.1. There were reports of a loss of power on the Concordia. Likely what happened is ship was hard astern taking off speed until a couple of minutes prior to this screen shot when water intrusion caused a power failure. The ship is a diesel electric and likely lost power to its main prop due to rapid water ingress.

 

At 5 kts and very likely without main engine power, the Concordia is still going much too quickly to risk running into the mud and sand shore so the Captain now turns hard away from shore and he is heading back out into the open channel.

 

With the helm hard over the starboard with the likely assistance of the bow thrusters the ship is turning hard which is pulling speed off fairly quickly. It is now down to 3.0 kts and it continues to slow.

 

The Concordia is now down to 1.6 kts and the Captain is clearly using the bow thrusters heavily as the bow continues to rotate quickly. He has now turned to a 41 degree heading.

 

It now has been just over 29 min since the ship first struck the rocks. It has essentially stopped and the bow is being brought all the way back round using bow thrusters in an effort to drive the ship back in towards shore presumably because the Captain believes it is at risk of sinking so he is seeking shallow water.

 

The Captain continues to force the Concordia to shore under bow thruster power. In this video narrative (John Konrad Narrates the Final Maneuvers of the Costa Concordia), the commentator reported that the combination of bow thrusters and the prevailing currents where being used in combination by the Captain to drive the boat into shore.

 

A further 11 min and 22 seconds have past and the ship has now accelerated back up to 0.9 kts now heading towards shore.

 

It has been more than an hour and 11 minutes since the original contact with the rocks and the Costa Concordia is now at rest in its final grounding point.

 

The Coast Guard transcript of the radio communications with the Captain are at Costa Concordia Transcript: Coastguard Orders Captain to return to Stricken Ship. In the following text De Falco is the Coast Guard Commander and Schettino is the Captain of the Costa Concordia:

 

De Falco: "This is De Falco speaking from Livorno. Am I speaking with the commander?"

Schettino: "Yes. Good evening, Cmdr De Falco."

De Falco: "Please tell me your name."

Schettino: "I'm Cmdr Schettino, commander."

De Falco: "Schettino? Listen Schettino. There are people trapped on board. Now you go with your boat under the prow on the starboard side. There is a pilot ladder. You will climb that ladder and go on board. You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear? I'm recording this conversation, Cmdr Schettino …"

Schettino: "Commander, let me tell you one thing …"

De Falco: "Speak up! Put your hand in front of the microphone and speak more loudly, is that clear?"

Schettino: "In this moment, the boat is tipping …"

De Falco: "I understand that, listen, there are people that are coming down the pilot ladder of the prow. You go up that pilot ladder, get on that ship and tell me how many people are still on board. And what they need. Is that clear? You need to tell me if there are children, women or people in need of assistance. And tell me the exact number of each of these categories. Is that clear? Listen Schettino, that you saved yourself from the sea, but I am going to … really do something bad to you … I am going to make you pay for this. Go on board, (expletive)!"

Schettino: "Commander, please …"

De Falco: "No, please. You now get up and go on board. They are telling me that on board there are still …"

Schettino: "I am here with the rescue boats, I am here, I am not going anywhere, I am here …"

De Falco: "What are you doing, commander?"

Schettino: "I am here to co-ordinate the rescue …"

De Falco: "What are you co-ordinating there? Go on board! Co-ordinate the rescue from aboard the ship. Are you refusing?"

Schettino: "No, I am not refusing."

De Falco: "Are you refusing to go aboard, commander? Can you tell me the reason why you are not going?"

Schettino: "I am not going because the other lifeboat is stopped."

De Falco: "You go aboard. It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'abandon ship'. Now I am in charge. You go on board! Is that clear? Do you hear me? Go, and call me when you are aboard. My air rescue crew is there."

Schettino: "Where are your rescuers?"

De Falco: "My air rescue is on the prow. Go. There are already bodies, Schettino."

Schettino: "How many bodies are there?"

De Falco: "I don't know. I have heard of one. You are the one who has to tell me how many there are. Christ!"

Schettino: "But do you realize it is dark and here we can't see anything …"

De Falco: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"

Schettino: "… I am with my second in command."

De Falco: "So both of you go up then … You and your second go on board now. Is that clear?"

Schettino: "Commander, I want to go on board, but it is simply that the other boat here … there are other rescuers. It has stopped and is waiting …"

De Falco: "It has been an hour that you have been telling me the same thing. Now, go on board. Go on board! And then tell me immediately how many people there are there."

Schettino: "OK, commander."

De Falco: "Go, immediately!"

 

At least 16 died in the accident and 17 were still missing when this was written (Costa Concordia Disaster).The Captain of the Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino, has been charged with manslaughter and abandoning ship.

 

At the time of the grounding, the ship was carrying 2,200 metric tons of heavy fuel oil and 185 metric tons of diesel and remains environmental risk remains (Costa Concordia Salvage Experts Ready to Begin Pumping Fuel from Capsized Cruise Ship Off Coast of Italy). The 170 year old salvage firm Smit Salvage will be leading the operation.

 

All situations are complex and few disasters have only a single cause. However, the facts as presented to this point pretty strongly towards pilot error as the primary contributor in this event.  The Captain is clearly very experienced and his ship handling after the original grounding appear excellent. But, it’s hard to explain why the ship was that close to the rocks, the captain has reported that he turned too late, and public reports have him on the phone at or near the time of the original grounding.

 

What I take away from the data points presented here is that experience, ironically,  can be our biggest enemy. As we get increasingly proficient at a task, we often stop paying as much attention. And, with less dedicated focus on a task, over time, we run the risk of a crucial mistake that we probably wouldn’t have made when we were effectively less experienced and perhaps less skilled. There is danger in becoming comfortable.

 

The videos referenced in the above can be found at:

·         Grounding of Costa Concordia Interpolated

·         gCaptain’s John Konrad Narrates the Final Maneuvers of the Costa Concordia

 

If you are interested in reading more:

·         http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2012/01/costa_concordia_salvage_expert.html

·         http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16620807

·         http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/divers-in-grounded-costa-concordia-112/2012/01/25/gIQAOkD2PQ_video.html

·         http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16620807

·         http://www.foxnews.com/slideshow/world/2012/01/14/luxury-ship-runs-aground-off-italy-bodies-found/#slide=22

·         http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9042826/Wife-of-Costa-Concordia-captain-says-it-is-not-for-those-on-land-to-judge-her-husband.html

·         http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/interactive-graphics/9018076/Concordia-How-the-disaster-unfolded.html

·         http://news.qps.nl.s3.amazonaws.com/Grounding+Costa+Concordia.pdf

·         http://www.bellenews.com/2012/01/14/world/europe-news/italian-captain-of-costa-concordia-cruise-ship-has-been-arrested/

·         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia

·         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster

 

Sunday's snow mostly was gone by Monday, but we got another load later in the week. The weather system was difficult to forecast. Although the snowfall was less than the record originally anticipated, enough still fell to keep anyone off the roads who didn't need to be out. And we got an unusual freezing rain event. The combination knocked out power for many folks on the Eastside. The past few day's below-freezing temperatures have eased off now, and the snow is melting. But conditions still are pretty bad on many city streets, with power still out for a number of Eastside residents.

Below are a couple of images taken from our boat at Bell Harbor Marina. On the left someone is using a leaf blower to clear the ramp, and we actually had enough to warrant using a snow blower on the docks.

We had several inches piled on our decks. When building the boat, we added extra insulation above the overhead panels to improve heating efficiency for high-latitude cruising. Judging by the lack of snowmelt on our decks, given we keep the boat 72F inside, the insulation is working.

Novik from Skol checked out the snow for a bit. Spitfire left a few prints, but generally wasn't impressed.

The freezing rain coated our our rails in ice. The last time we remember seeing our deck rails frozen like that was several years back when saltwater froze on our rails and decks. After the freezing rain, the snow was like a hardshell candy: a solid crust on the outside, with soft and fluffy snow on the inside.

By Thursday, the snow path cleared on Wednesday was starting to fill in. The picture on the right below is taken along the old waterfront streetcar tracks across the road from the marina.

 

Lots of marina space. Even in the winter, it's unusual for the guest dock to be completely empty near the weekend.

Downtown Seattle was pretty quiet on Thursday. Some of the steeper roads were blocked for traffic. Many businesses were closed, and few cars or people were about. Pike Place Market was open, but unusually quiet, with a handful of vendors open and not many customers.

 

Snow is fairly rare in the Puget Sound, so a layer of the white stuff always is a treat. We'd spent the weekend in LaConner, where 2-3 inches of snow had fallen overnight, and left around 7 this morning for the run back to Seattle. The trip through Swinomish Channel was magical in the dark. With few people about that early, the snow was mostly undistrubed and lay thickly on the rails and every flat surface of the many boats tied off on either side of the waterway. The white blanket softened all the hard edges and reflected the faintest light. Even the most tired-looking vessel we passed looked shiny and new. In the shoreside houses beyond town, a few early risers were reading the morning paper with a fire burning in their hearths. Their house lights cast a welcoming, golden glow onto the white landscape. At the steep cliffs near the turn west, snow clung to the rocky walls and filled the trees. 

 

Some of the communites farther south had snow, but there wasn't much along the south end of Whidbey Island, so we weren't expecting any snow in Seattle.

On VHF, we could hear Vessel Traffic talking about restricted visibility in Elliott Bay. It was snowing fairly hard as we approached, we couldn't see the other side of the bay. The storm lifted as we neared downtown, and West Seattle appeared, presumably with a fresh coating of snow.

   

And an inch or two had fallen at Bell Harbor. The classic wooden sailboat Skol looked wonderful with a layer of white.