Wednesday, May 8, 2013

OZYMANDIAS

They knocked it down.

Italian pilots in control of an Italian ship managed to knock down the Port of Genoa control tower. The bizarre Italians who sank a passenger ship Costa Concordia, by showboating and winning the 'who can drive closest to shore' award have plumbed new shallows. The idiots. I won't be surprised to learn that the two pilots aboard the ship were feuding with each other and one sabotaged the other leading to the first successful Italian nautical attack on a building since Venice was a Republic. I think in that one they took out either the Colossus of Rhodes or the Lighthouse at Alexandria.
On the gripping hand? That tower didn't have to be there. Putting it there was hubris.

4 comments:

OldAFSarge said...

Unbelievable. They drive their ships just like they drive their cars!

Buck said...

Well, I suppose stuff happens. This is rather unbelievable, though.

Anne Bonney said...

Those crazy Mario brothers are at it again!

HMS Defiant said...

I once had the con piloting into Mina Sulman. The pilot requested that I bring the ship to a new heading as we completed the turn through the reef. I asked him to clarify and he repeated the heading. I pointed out that the heading he just gave was the reciprocal of our current heading and said, no. An LPD has an awesomely large turning radius at 5 knots, way more than the available navigable water in Mina Sulman. It taught me not to trust pilots. The problem of course is that, 1. They are supposed to speak English (but many don't) and
2. The pilots control the tug and they gabble away at him in their own language leaving you with no idea what the tug is up to at any given moment. It takes a while to see movement in that kind of situation due to inertia but again, due to inertia, it takes forever to stop it and reverse it. 8000 tons of ship wants to keep going.