NavList:

From your photo of the forward looking SONAR screen it appears that the range is limited to only a few hundred meters. If this is so, then at the speed the ship was traveling, it is possible that it would not have given sufficient warning to avoid those rocks. gl --- On Tue, 1/24/12, James N Wilson <jn.wilson@juno.com> wrote: From: James N Wilson <jn.wilson@juno.com> Subject: [NavList] Re: A credible AIS track for the Costa Concordia To: NavList@fer3.com Date: Tuesday, January 24, 2012, 8:08 AM  On our recent Black Sea Cruise, the Odyssey Clipper had a forward looking sonar, giving an underwater picture of what's ahead of the bow (at left in attachment). That was a small 110 passenger ship, and it seems that one forty times that size could afford such.   Jim Wilson ......   I think the story that has come together is a fairly simple one. The captain was navigating visually. He knew the area well and had made close passes before. He turned too late and hit the outer edge of the reef. The rest is history, and it's just amazingly lucky that the loss of life was not vastly greater. But how can one individual, fallible as all mortals, be the sole cause of this? Were there no other officers monitoring the vessel's position? Were there no automated systems warning of dangerously shallow water? Where was the backup to this fallible individual?? ____________________________________________________________ 53 Year Old Mom Looks 33 The Stunning Results of Her Wrinkle Trick Has Botox Doctors Worried consumerproducts.com