Costa Concordia incident, Friday 13 Jan 2012

[nonhocapito]

but I think this thread proves that there are many reasons to believe that, once again, a big disaster is being using for psy-op/scam purposes.

What? Haven't we already been through this earlier in the thread? Proof of a disaster? What are you talking about?

All we have is a silly broken boat lying in the water. In NY a broken plane in the Hudson did not mean the Sullenberger Event occurred. Here, we have no proof at all that any boat full of passengers had a problem leading to nighttime evacuation.

Again, did I miss something somewhere?

Frankly, fbenario, I don't get why you have decided to nit-pick my every post in this thread looking for unlikely, unreasonable faults of mine, as if to suggest I must have some preconceived idea about this event.

In any case: I said that this thread proves (I should have said shows, but it's the same) that there are reasons to believe (notice the subordinate) that this event is a scam. That's all I've said and you know it very well. I used the word "disaster" rather than "event" simply because this is what the media call it. Just as I might call 9/11 a "terror event" in one context or the other, if only because after all it was aimed at causing terror.

Besides a gigantic ship stranded next to the coast can be called a "disaster" without irony or metaphoric sense -- even if the dynamic of the events and the alleged victims involved are all false. Disaster, according to the Oxford dictionary is "an event or fact leading to ruin or failure". And we certainly have plenty of those.

[antipodean]

Fbenario, what exactly are you trying to say ?
Safely landing a large passenger plane with no loss of life into a river within a heavily built up area, is a far less believable story than a large cruise ship becoming grounded and toppling over close to shore.

Since October a large container ship still remains grounded off the coast of New Zealand.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/ja ... ew-zealand

[fbenario]

C'mon people. An Event described in the media that actually happened isn't shown by faked images/videos. The broken plane in the Hudson River did NOT prove - or establish - that any aspect of the Sullenberger Event occurred. Here in Italy the Event was a boat running aground, going on an absurd, silly circular route before keeling over (by dropping its anchor on the other side from the ripped hull), followed by a nighttime evacuation.

Simon's work on this thread shows pretty darn conclusively that the images/videos for this Event are fake. Thus the Event did not occur. Please stop saying that these faked images "prove" that a disaster happened. Further, logic tells us that merely dropping an anchor does NOT cause a boat to keel over. Otherwise many boats would topple every day when they drop anchor.

(If TPTB decided to ground a no-longer-used boat to further some absurd psyop, it does not prove a disaster. Please stop using those terms.)

EDIT: And Nonho, I am not picking on you. You've posted over 1,000 times, and this thread is the first time I've ever completely disagreed with you. And even here I'm only disagreeing with your choice of words - not your analysis.

[nonhocapito]

This just in

There are no pictures or specific articles to be found yet, but I read on italian news websites that a Tirrenia ferry in Civitavecchia (the origin harbor of Concordia) hit the pier and tore a 30 meters long hole in its hull (above the load line, apparently). All 300 people on board appear to be safe...

And so there'll be another huge ship stranded on the italian shores...

p.s. "Sharden" is a strange name for an italian ship. Sounds awfully english. Anagram of "hardens", though. These days the weather in Italy is "hardening" too a great deal with very cold temperatures, and very strong winds that appear to be the cause of the accident.

[nonhocapito]

waiting for more news on this new maritime accident...


From http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classe_Nuraghes

A couple of videos of the Sharden:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0I6mAY4ws0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-4EXKDrwGk

Tirrenia page dedicated to it:
http://www.tirrenia.org/traghetto-sharden.html
http://www.ferryprice.com/tirrenia/tirr ... arden.html

According to this italian wickipedia page, the ship belongs to the brand new class of ferries that connects Civitavecchia and Olbia, in Sardinia.

[simonshack]

Simon's work on this thread shows pretty darn conclusively that the images/videos for this Event are fake.

Dear Fbenario,

I think you've been missing something. No - all images of this event aren't fake. I went to Giglio island (with fellow forum member Heiwa) and we both snapped our own pictures of the stranded ship: it is lying there allright - right outside of the port - making for a picturesque backdrop as one sits in one of the port restaurants having delicious spaghetti alle vongole. It will no doubt make for a popular attraction for the coming ten months - and a useful little boost to Giglio's tourism economy.

However, there is certainly no shortage of fake and/or fully staged imagery manufactured for this scam:
- All the imagery featuring any of the alleged passengers on board - as I believe the ship never carried any.
- All the nighttime imagery showing the capsized ship with people crawling upon its side (see: the infrared Coast Guard video)
- Some of the imagery featuring "Captain Skate" ('Schettino' derives from the English word 'skate' - which also means "irresponsible/superficial"), who appears to be just a - flesh and blood, third-rate actor/impersonator cast in the role of a (villainous) cruiseship Captain...therefore, a phony 'historical photo album' of the guy in captain uniform was likely put together - by digital means.

All in all, the so-called "CONCORDIA DISASTER" has turned out to be a gigantic mediatic bonanza here in Italy, a grotesque spaghetti-soap-opera of unprecedented silliness and melodrama. For well over two weeks - it mesmerized and entertained the entire populace incessantly, what with raging national debates over "Captain Skate's" irresponsible/or heroic figure, the absurdly fluctuating/contradictory victim count - of "dead" and "missing" - and the excruciatingly/ridiculously slow, alleged search/retrieval of the same.

In fact, if it wasn't for the shipwreck lying in front of the Giglio port (which was probably simply brought there by some 'SWAT team' in the dead of night/anchored/and deliberately sunk) - this whole Concordia hoax qualifies as a total non-event - yet a hugely profitable one for everyone involved in its planning, its multiple multi-millionaire insurance scams and - last but not least- its media coverage. As I like to call it..."Money for nothing".

[nonhocapito]

Found images for the Sharden accident. Looking forward to Heiwa's comments.


From http://www.ilgiornale.it/cronache/civit ... comments=1


From http://it.euronews.net/flashnews/136699 ... -tirrenia/

Funny how in any picture we see, there just have to be faceless people taking pictures. We rarely ever get the shots of the photographer in the front!

For the rest, not too many details, only little news pieces like this one (in english): http://www.agi.it/english-version/italy ... body_is_ok
Longer pieces in italian: http://www.blitzquotidiano.it/cronaca-i ... i-1106476/
http://www.giornalettismo.com/archives/ ... concordia/

The accident does appear eerily similar to the one of the Concordia -- the ship was leaving Civitavecchia and it smashed against an obstacle on its course, apparently the base of the green light at the exit of the harbor.

In this case they seem to blame the wind, which to me sounds a lot like blaming the sea, I simply don't get it. Shouldn't that be taken into account? Don't they have expert pilots for this purpose?

[nonhocapito]

What are all these ships doing - struggling in the italian sea?
Today came to my mind Italy's most revered poet, Dante Alighieri, who in an ever famous set of verses from his Purgatory, compared Italy itself to a ship stranded at sea, in a storm, without command.

Ahi serva Italia, di dolore ostello,
nave sanza nocchiere in gran tempesta,
non donna di province, ma bordello!

Ah Italy enslaved, refuge of grief,
ship without pilot in a great storm,
not woman of provinces, but of brothel!

~ Purgatory, Canto VI
(translation by yours truly)

Dante lamented the need for a king or a chief to unify Italy, divided as it was by the selfishness of little rulers and foreign powers. If I look at it now, I think that not much has changed...
... and again I find that strange, inexplicable feeling, that for some unfathomable reason, these, right now, are historical crucial days for my rotten, beloved nation. I just wish I could understand more.

End of the rhetorical parenthesis, sorry about that.

[icarusinbound]

Compare the apparent distance between the iron bollard and the hull, in my marked-up picture, and the longer seperation in the other picture (with two amateur photographers). Is that perspective foreshortning??

The spontaneous corrosion is very similar to that shown on the hull the Concordia. These plates should be galvanic treated as well as just paint. And that 'shark's grin' of the shredded hull looks a lot like Concordia as welll.....

Am I seeing a harmless simulacrum on the pocket of his jeans? Or is it almost 911, via 96= ??

And that foot...he looks like a decoupage dude...

[nonhocapito]

Another picture with the same out-of-focus photographer:


From http://www.civonline.it/articolo/incide ... ri-sharden

And you're right icarusinbound, there definitely seems to be a problem of distance/perspective compared to this other picture...



Is it just a telephoto effect? Possibly, but it does look weird...

[icarusinbound]

Another picture with the same out-of-focus photographer:

[Heiwa]

I fully agree with my friend Simon Shack that the Costa Concordia incident at Isola del Giglio outside Tuscany on January 13, 2012, is a scam – like, e.g. 911 2001 at NY! Why do I do it, having worked 40+ years in the shipping/cruise business seeing most of it; design, new construction, operations, maintenance, repairs, conversions, training, ship safety maintenance, etc, etc.? And having had fun on many cruises in the Caribbean, Med and SE Asia??

It is easy! The structural, real, hull damages we see on real photos of the port bottom side of the real ship with a 100 tons boulder (a granite rock piece) are fantasy, Hollywood 911 style and cannot, ever, have been produced by a late night, showboat, flying bye, contact of a virtually uninhabited island by an irresponsible Master of the ship as alleged by the ship owner.

It is impossible that a ship with draft 8.5 meters scoop up, from bottom of the sea at any depth, a 100 tons boulder and lodges it on top of the 2 meter high inner bottom of the ship itself during a 5 seconds contact.

The photos of the structural damage looks impressive (both Simon and I have seen it and taken pictures of it from a distance) but, sorry … they do not occur in the real world.

So it is was apparently an insurance scam apart from whatever else it was/is? You wonder why a US company like Carnival Corp is involved? The biggest cruise line company in the world! And in every marine insurance scam the Master is always a partner. He has played his role as an idiot well. And will be paid for it.

I, like Simon, assume the real Costa Concordia ship was, apart from not making any money since long, i.e. losing plenty money for the owner, was virtually empty when the ‘incident’ was staged. The hull damages + boulder seen on photos were apparently done/arranged at Civitavecchia (compare M/S Sharden the other day) and then the real Costa ship was brought to Isola del Giglio outside the port … as seen on photos and videos … and 200-300 paid crew/passenger actors were dramatically disembarked as seen on all faked footage of all kind of the scam … and the ship was simply sank there. That was easy!

The story of a stupid show boat fly bye and a wining/dining Master/blond girls, bla, bla, is just Hollywood fantasy/soap.

I doubt that 4 200 ship wrecked persons, 3 200 passengers, 1000 mostly Asiatic crew, were ever accommodated on Isola del Giglio on the night January 13/14 and then brought by ferries to Porto Sant Stefano on the mainland in the morning and then brought by buses to Rome airport and, bye, bye, travelled back home all over the world in the evening. Sorry Costa Cruises staff. You could not have done it. But provide evidence to the contrary and we can discuss!

And all videos and photos of the incident/night embarkation from ship to Porto Giglio – sorry, they are all stupid fakes 911 style. It seems greed and stupidity and pure madness are behind this scam … like most recent scams.

For the records

Heiwa, aka Anders Björkman, 6 rue Victor Hugo, F 06240 Beausoleil, France, tel 0033661725424, anders.bjorkman@wanadoo.fr , on February 4, 2012. http://heiwaco.tripod.com/news8.htm

[nonhocapito]

About the Sharden, I just found a more recent article that states the following (official from Tirrenia):

il traghetto Sharden, in uscita dal porto con l'ausilio del rimorchiatore secondo le modalita' previste dall'Autorita' portuale, a causa di fortissime raffiche di vento (30-35 nodi circa) ha urtato la banchina dell'antimurale.

The Sharden ferry, getting out of the harbor, with the aid of the tugboat as prescribed by regulation, due to very strong gusts of wind (30-35 knots) banged into the quay of the protective wall (?).

So there was no green light involved, as previously reported, but some part of quay itself (I am not sure of the technical translation there).

And apparently, big ships carried by tugboats, inside the harbor and under the control of the harbor pilot, can end up smashing against the mural parts of the harbor because of gusts of wind. Good to know!

And... I'm asking the experts: can a 35 knots wind really move such a big ship? According to the scale published here, in that range of speed "twigs break from trees, and long streaks of foam appear on the ocean"...

* * *

Heiwa & Simon: thanks for your crystal-clear last observations about the Concordia scam. I am utterly relieved to read such scientifically, technically certain statements -- and such clear representation of the scenario of this artificial event -- I am ever more proud to be here, part of this amazing forum.

[pdgalles]

What are all these ships doing - struggling in the italian sea?

[...]

Dante lamented the need for a king or a chief to unify Italy, divided as it was by the selfishness of little rulers and foreign powers. If I look at it now, I think that not much has changed...
... and again I find that strange, inexplicable feeling, that for some unfathomable reason, these, right now, are historical crucial days for my rotten, beloved nation. I just wish I could understand more.

End of the rhetorical parenthesis, sorry about that.

Not at all, I like these insights.

This may be a bit of a simplified metaphor but the way it seems to be unfolding to my non-Italian eyes:

Berlusconi was seen by critics to have driven Italy in to the ground financially/economically and promptly exited stage left, in the same way that Schettino "drove" the Concordia in to the rocks and promptly tripped in to a life boat and abandoned ship.

Thus Mario Monti is represented in this political/maritime metaphor by Captain Roberto Bosio, as both men were forced to come to the rescue in an unelected/unofficial manner.

So although Monti/Bosio were able to contain one disaster maybe the Sharden represents coming "disasters" (or at least the threat of) that will be too much for our lone hero(es) to cope with.

Edit: lack of Italian political knowledge corrected.

[icarusinbound]

Sharden closeups

What on earth are we looking at here? Apart from gaping ripped metal, and rapid rust. I mean quite distinct from any possible image manipulation: what is the apparent physical content saying to us??

What are these cable conduits for? Why do they appear to travel down to the exact starting-point and 'plimsoll' height for the gash?? Why do they look added?








And why does there appear to be such a huge difference in the position of the prow of the ship, forward/relative to the position of the pier-head, in different pictures?? Has the ship actually moved in between two shots??

Nonhocapito, I do take your point that there may be use of a telephoto lens, but if the ship *hasn't* moved, why is it that in the "Mr Baseball-cap" shot the prow appears quite close to the viewer? And is then much further away in the longer-shot? Conversely, how can Mr Baseball-cap be where he is (relative to the gash and especially the aft cable-drop...see?), and not have fallen off the pier??