Cruise Ship Law

GIGLIO, Italy — The captain of the cruise ship that capsized aground near an Italian island, killing at least five people, may have caused the accident by taking the ship too close to the island’s rocky shore, the owner of the vessel said on Sunday, as rescue workers extracted three survivors and two bodies from the wreck.

The captain, Francesco Schettino, 52, of Naples, Italy, was detained for questioning by the Italian police on charges of manslaughter, failure to offer assistance and abandonment of the ship.

On Sunday, Costa Cruises, the ship’s owner, issued a statement saying that “there may have been significant human error” by Captain Schettino that caused the ship, the Costa Concordia, to ground on a rocky outcropping near this resort island on Friday.

“The route of the vessel appears to have been too close to the shore, and in handling the emergency, the captain appears not to have followed standard Costa procedures,” the statement said.

The statement appeared to diverge from the company’s comments on Saturday when it said that the Costa Concordia had followed the normal course it follows “52 times a year.” The company had also commended Captain Schettino, saying he “immediately understood the severity of the situation” and “initiated security procedures to prepare for an eventual ship evacuation.”

Before he was detained by the authorities, Captain Schettino told Italian television that the ship hit a reef that was not on its navigation charts.

About 70 people were injured when the ship capsized, just as a late-seating dinner had begun on Friday night.

Accounts from survivors and witnesses raised questions about whether the ship had veered off course and suggested that the crew was ill-prepared for an emergency.

With 17 of the ship’s 4,200 passengers still listed as missing, rescue workers searched the waterlogged luxury liner on Sunday for survivors and found three, including a couple on their honeymoon. The couple was found inside a cabin, said Luca Cari, a spokesman for the Italian fire brigade that rescued them.

Later, firefighters rescued the ship’s purser by helicopter, hoisting him strapped to a stretcher. The purser, Manrico Giampedroni, 57, from the northwestern region of Liguria, had a broken leg.

Divers searching submerged cabins found the bodies of two elderly men, one from Spain and one from Italy, both wearing life jackets, said Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro, a coast guard spokesman. The deaths brought the number of people confirmed dead to five.

Among the people still missing were 11 passengers and 6 crew members, said Enrico Rossi, president of the Tuscany region. The United States State Department said Sunday that 120 Americans had been on board and all but 2 had been accounted for.

Through the day, Italian fire brigades circled the massive ship, which lay on its side like a beached whale, with a wide gash just below the waterline and a rock jutting through its hull. The firefighters tapped the hull and listened for any responses from people trapped inside.

Rescuers were focusing their efforts on the part of the ship still above water. “The likelihood that we can find somebody alive in the underwater cabins is very low, so we are aiming at the ones possibly trapped above water,” said Mr. Cari, the fire spokesman.

So far, his crews had searched only a quarter of that area, parts of which are blocked by debris. He said the sunken portion of the ship would be inspected through the porthole windows during the night by divers with flashlights.

On the tiny island of Giglio, some residents had tended to survivors through the night on Friday, offering hot tea and dry clothes. At Mass on Sunday morning at the Giglio Porto church, a priest placed a life jacket, a rope and a rescue helmet on the altar to honor the dead and missing.

“Giglio will no longer be the same,” said Don Lorenzo, the priest. “Let’s us all pray together now for our souls.”

While the investigation continued, residents, many of whom are sailors, had little doubt about the cause of the accident, saying the captain had tried to thread a narrow passage between the rocks that was too small for the 114,500-ton ship.

“We used to get kind of close to the shore to show off its beauty, to entertain passengers,” said Demetrio Mattera, 75, a former cruise ship sailor here. “But never so close.”

Rome, Italy -- The Italian captain of the cruise ship that ran aground -- killing three people and injuring 20 more -- was arrested late Saturday and is being investigated for abandoning ship and manslaughter, said a local prosecutor in Grosetto, Italy.

Abandoning ship is the more serious of the potential charges, authorities said.

The captain, Francesco Schettino, had been earlier interviewed by investigators in Porto Santo Stefano about what happened when the 4,200-passenger Costa Concordia struck rocks in shallow water off Italy's western coast, said officer Emilio Del Santo of the Coastal Authorities of Livorno.

Authorities were looking at why the ship didn't hail a mayday during the accident near the Italian island of Giglio on Friday night, officials said. The ship is owned by Genoa-based Costa Cruises.

"At the moment we can't exclude that the ship had some kind of technical problem, and for this reason moved towards the coast in order to save the passengers, the crew and the ship. But they didn't send a mayday. The ship got in contact with us once the evacuation procedures were already ongoing," Del Santo said prior to the announcement of the arrest.

Giuseppe Orsina, a spokesman with the local civil protection agency, said 43 to 51 people were missing, though authorities are reviewing passenger lists to confirm the exact figure.

"These people could be still on the island of Giglio, in private houses or in hospitals," Orsina said.

The coast guard said 50 to 70 people could be missing.

Authorities said earlier Saturday they believed everyone was accounted for, but that they did not have a definitive list of names.

"Fear and panic are comprehensible in a ship long over 300 meters with over 4,000 passengers," Del Santo said. "We can confirm that the ship has a breach on the hull of about 90 meters, and that the right side of it is completely under water."

Two French tourists and a crew member from Peru were killed, Port authorities in Livorno said. One of the victims was a 65-year-old woman who died of a heart attack, according to authorities.

A surviving crew member, Rosalyn Rincon, 30, of Blackpool, England, said she wanted to know why the cruise ship was sailing so close to shore. She described a harrowing grounding of the vessel, whose tilting and rising water evoked the film "Titanic," she said.

"I'm pretty much angry, and I want to know why we were so close to the coast," said Rincon, who works as a dancer on the ship and was entertaining passengers by performing a trick inside a box with a magician when the accident occurred.

Nautilus International, a maritime employees trade union, called the accident a "wake-up call" to regulators.

"Nautilus is concerned about the rapid recent increases in the size of passenger ships -- with the average tonnage doubling over the past decade," said Nautilus general secretary Mark Dickinson in a statement. "Many ships are now effectively small towns at sea, and the sheer number of people onboard raises serious questions about evacuation."

The ship was 2.5 miles off route when it struck a rocky sandbar, according to the Italian Coast Guard. Local fishermen say the island coast of Giglio is known for its rocky sea floor.

Gianni Onorato, president of Costa Cruises, expressed "deep sorrow for this terrible tragedy," but said the cruise line was unable to answer all the questions that authorities are now investigating.

"On the basis of the initial evidence - still preliminary - Costa Concordia, under the command of Master Francesco Schettino, was sailing its regularly scheduled itinerary from Civitavecchia to Savona, Italy, when the ship struck a submerged rock," Onorato said in a statement before the announcement of the captain's announcement.

"Captain Schettino, who was on the bridge at the time, immediately understood the severity of the situation and performed a maneuver intended to protect both guests and crew, and initiated security procedures to prepare for an eventual ship evacuation," he continued.

"Unfortunately, that operation was complicated by a sudden tilting of the ship that made disembarkation difficult," Onorato said.

Some passengers fell into the chilly waters during the rescue, Italy's ANSA news agency reported.

The huge ship, which was lying on its side in shallow water Saturday evening, was carrying about 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members when it ran aground around dinner time.

Initial reports suggested as many as six people had been killed, but it was unclear why the number dropped. About 1,500 of the people aboard the ship were on their way home Saturday, the Civil Protection Authority said.

Passengers described how the lights went out and it then became clear the ship had hit something, prompting scenes of chaos.

Laurie Willits from Ontario, who was watching a magic show with her husband at that moment, told CNN: "We heard a scraping noise to the left of the ship and then my husband said 'we're sliding off our seats.'"

The couple ran to their cabin to get coats and life jackets before making their way to a lifeboat. Emergency instructions in English were hard to hear, Willits said.

Panic spread as people scrambled to find lifeboats in the dark as the ship quickly leaned to one side. Access to some lifeboats was hampered by the ship's tilt into the water, adding to the confusion.

Willits and her husband, who managed to get into a lifeboat about an hour to 90 minutes after the alarm was raised, watched from a pier on the island as the ship slowly sank until it was at an almost 90 degree angle in the water.

"I'm exhausted, I haven't had any sleep, I'm hungry," Willits said, but added that she was relieved to have been able to call her family thanks to the help of people on the island.

The coast guard said three helicopters were used to rescue some passengers from the ship.

Adm. Ilarione Dell'Anna, head of coastal authorities for the port city of Livorno, said an investigation is under way.

"There has probably been a technical blackout," he said. "The ship was dangerously near the coast. We worked all night in a state of maximum emergency.

"Fortunately the sea conditions have helped us, otherwise -- given the high number of people to rescue, 4,231 -- we could have had a completely different scenario: a real tragedy."

Many of those rescued in the early hours were taken to small churches and other buildings around the island for shelter. Some were still wearing the pajamas and slippers they had on as the ship went down, as they waited for help Saturday morning at reception centers set up on the island.

Costa said it was focusing on the final stages of the emergency operation and helping passengers and crew return home.

"It is a tragedy that deeply affects our company. Our first thoughts go to the victims and we would like to express our condolences and our closeness to their families and friends," Costa said on its website.

The Concordia, built in 2006, was on a Mediterranean cruise from Rome with stops in Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo, according to the cruise line. It was unclear how far into the cruise the grounding occurred.

Most of the passengers on board were Italian, as well as some French and German citizens. CNN affiliate America Noticias, in Peru, said a group of 32 Peruvians were also onboard. Brazil's state-run Agencia Brasil said 53 Brazilians were on the cruise ship: 47 passengers and six crew members, according to the foreign ministry. An estimated 126 Americans were also on board, according to the U.S. State Department. There were no reports of injured Americans.

The United Kingdom's Foreign and Commonwealth Office was working with Italian authorities to identify British nationals on the cruise, a spokesman said.

Another Costa ship was involved in a deadly 2010 accident when the Costa Europa crashed into a pier in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh during stormy weather, killing three crew members.

If you’re planning to visit Bermuda, leave your marijuana home—even if you need it “for medicinal reasons”. Known for its tough anti-drug laws, Bermuda’s customs officers routinely search arriving cruise ships looking for illegal substances.
This latest cruise ship tourist to be surprised by this was James Butter, an American tourist from Massachusetts who arrived in Bermuda this week aboard the Norwegian Dawn. Although he was off the ship at the time of the search, Butter was arrested when he returned, arraigned in Bermuda's Magistrates' Court, and fined a hefty $10,000 after allegedly being caught with marijuana in his cabin. The amount of his fine is one of the highest yet and is related to the volume of marijuana that he had onboard. Butter pleaded guilty to importing 23.45 grams of cannabis on Oct. 16.
Back in April a Royal Caribbean cruise ship passenger, Edward John Molinari of New York, was also arrested after sniffer dogs discovered the marijuana rolled into several cigarettes in Molinari's cabin safe. Although Molinari told the judge the drugs weren't his, that he’d found them in the room and that cannabis had been in use “all over the boat” the Magistrates Court fined him $3,000.
Passengers often fail to prepare properly for a cruise, including potentially breaking laws in other countries. Cruise ship lawyer Charles Lipcon has written a thorough guide, “Unsafe on the High Seas” to help tourists prepare for a range of possibilities, including Shipboard Disappearances, Noroviruses, Unaccredited Doctors and Inadequate Security.

Former Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina & Winkleman client Jamie Barnett spent countless hours on Capitol Hill fighting for the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act that passed in 2010. The clauses passed pertaining to the Act will go into affect in a matter of weeks, as we enter 2012. Changes will cover various aspects of the cruise experience, most notably where cruise ships will be required to have video surveillance systems that on-duty law enforcement officials can access as they see fit. Also, cabin doors will get upgraded with inside locks and peepholes. On the decks of the ships, 42 inch high railings will be required to enhance onboard safety.

Barnett, who is the president of International Cruise Victims Assn. Inc., was personally affected by loss on a cruise ship when her daughter died in 2005. Barnett sought out Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina & Winkleman maritime lawyers to help bring justice the unresolved matter, which included removal of her daughter’s body from the ship in Ensenada, Mexico, where an autopsy was performed prior to returning her body to the United States. Currently, the FBI has updated regulations and has the ability to now issue waivers so that autopsies can be performed upon the deceased once they arrive back in the United States, rather than immediately while they are still abroad.

http://www.lipcon.com/news/on-appeal:-11th-us-circuit-says-not-admitting-testimony-was-abuse-of-discretion.html

Mark and Tara Casavant’s ship has finally come in.

A decade after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks frightened the Worcester couple out of embarking on a cruise to Bermuda five days later, the state’s highest court has ruled that Norwegian Cruise Line engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices.

The court ruled that for failing to fully disclose its refund policy to the Casavants, and then refusing to reimburse the $2,135 cost of their trip, the cruise line must pay the couple back.

After the Casavants sued Norwegian in 2002, a lower-court judge ruled that their tickets be refunded. Now, per order of the state Supreme Judicial Court, Norwegian is on the hook for damages and attorney fees, too.

According to the court’s decision issued yesterday, Norwegian told the Casavants there was no refund due because they backed out of their trip with less than two weeks to go before the ship was to set sail from Boston.

The Casavants tried to reschedule, but Norwegian wouldn’t let them, the court found. “Norwegian informed the Casavants for the first time that it was Norwegian’s policy ‘to provide passengers with a 100-percent refund if they have an objection to a provision in the contract of passage,’ and, further, because the Casavants had not objected to a specific provision in the contract of passage at the time they sought to reschedule (or cancel) their trip, their claim for a refund was properly denied. This refund policy was not contained in any of the materials . . . the Casavants received prior to the scheduled trip,” the order reads.

Neither the Casavants nor Norwegian’s New York attorney could be reached for comment.

Regent Seven Seas Cruises will shift operations to Miami from Fort Lauderdale next fall, bringing regularly scheduled luxury sailings to a port that has been seeking to diversify its offerings.

The Port of Miami hosts ships from the world’s three largest cruise ship companies — Carnival, Royal Caribbean (including Celebrity) and Norwegian Cruise Line — but doesn’t have any regular sailings on top-of-the-line brands. Crystal Cruises, another luxury line, has a ship in Miami on rare occasions.

Regent — an all-inclusive luxury line that sails regular voyages to the Caribbean from South Florida in the winter — will add another 19 calls to the Port of Miami during the season that starts next fall, mostly on its 490-passenger Seven Seas Navigator.

“It’s just another step up in the direction we want to go,” said Port of Miami director Bill Johnson.

The three-ship line will join sister company Oceania Cruises, which also sails the Caribbean and other destinations from Miami. Both are under parent company Prestige Cruises Holdings, which is controlled by Apollo Management. Apollo is a part owner of Norwegian Cruise Line, which also bases ships in Miami.

Both Oceania and Regent will sail from Terminal J on the port’s south side, where a nearly $3 million improvement project is just about complete.

Regent president Mark Conroy said having a dedicated terminal — and sailing from the same place as Oceania — will be more convenient for the line and its passengers. At Port Everglades, he said, heavy traffic sometimes forces Regent ships to use different terminals and to limit the days ships can sail in and out.

The closer proximity to Miami International Airport, Conroy said, will also be helpful for international visitors.

“It just makes considerable sense for them to be in the Port of Miami with the proximity to one of the largest international airports in the United States,” said Miami cruise industry expert Stewart Chiron, CEO of Cruiseguy.com.

A Port Everglades official said the news was not surprising, given Regent’s common owner with Oceania. Regent’s headquarters will move in north Broward to Prestige’s current offices in west Miami-Dade this fall.

“We have expected this consolidation for some time,” Port Everglades director Phil Allen said in a statement.

Chiron said Miami has lacked a regular “six-star” tenant of Regent’s caliber, a class that includes Crystal, Seabourn and Silversea. The last two brands sail from Port Everglades.

“Is it a big loss to Port Everglades?” Chiron asked. “Not really. Is it a boost to Miami? Yes.”

Environmentalists in South Carolina are fighting for caps on the number of cruises annually travel in and out of the Charleston harbor. The goal is to reduce waste water discharge logs, reduce the size of ships and therefore reduce the capacity.

However, with the popular cruise industry (which brings about $37 million to the area each year), many feel that putting a cap on incoming tourists that boost the economy doesn’t make much sense.

While there are certainly no shortage of cruise ship laws, there is room for debate on this proposal considering that the Port hasn’t even hit 100 cruises per year yet—they have 89 expected for 2012 and 84 in 2013.

Stay tuned as the City Council of Charleston and the Coastal Conservation League reconvene September 13.

Texas representative Blake Farenthold has proposed cruise ship legislation that will directly challenge the Jones Act that restricts foreign built, crewed and flagged vessels from traveling from port to port in the U.S. Under the Jones Act, the only ships allowed to do so are those built, owned and waving the U.S. flag.

Farenthold has spawned the CRUISE Act, which stands for the Creating and Restoring U.S. Investment and Stimulating Employment Act that allows foreign operated cruise ships to embark in coastal trading to spur economic development. In recent years, the cruise industry has created revenues of $788 million, and upping the amount of foreign traffic to smaller ports could help deepwater ports to thrive. Excluded from the CRUISE Act are public vessels, government vessels, and scheduled vessels. Ferries are unclear as to whether they would be included as well. Ultimately, the goal is to take down barriers that hinder economic growth.

Currently, the tentative cruise ship law is in the hands of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.