Tuesday, January 17, 2012

What is "Yellow Stain" in Italian?

Captain Francesco Schettino - I think we need a leadership award named after him. Via CBS;
The newspaper Corriere della Sera has posted online what it states is an audio recording and transcript of phone communications early Saturday morning between Schettino and the Coast Guard commander at the port of Livorno, who is heard pleading with the captain to return to his ship until all aboard had been safely evacuated.
...
Coast Guard: "Listen Schettino, there are people trapped on board. Now you need to go on your life boat, under the bow of the ship on the side. There is a ladder. You need to climb up the ladder and board the ship. Get on board and report to me how many people there are. Is that clear?. . . . "

Schettino: "At this moment the ship is tilted."

Coast Guard: "I understand. Listen, there are people who are coming down the ladder on the bow. Go back in the opposite direction, get back on the ship, and tell me how many people there are and what they have on board. . . . Tell me if there are children, women and what type of help they need. And you tell me the number of each of these categories. Is that clear? . . . Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Dammit, go back on board!"

Schettino: "Please . . . "

Coast Guard: "There is no please about it. Go back on board. Assure me you are going back on board!"

Schettino: "I am in the life boat, under the ship, I haven't gone anywhere, I'm here."

Coast Guard: "What are you doing?"

Schettino: "I am coordinating . . . "

Coast Guard: "What are you coordinating there? Go on board! Coordinate the rescue from on board! Are you refusing?"

Schettino: "No, I am not refusing."

Coast Guard: "Tell me the reason why you are not going back on board."

Schettino: "There is another life boat ... "

Coast Guard: "You go back on board! That is an order! There is nothing else for you to consider. You have sounded the 'abandon ship.' Now I am giving the orders. Go back on board. Is that clear? Don't you hear me?"

Schettino: "I am going on board."

Coast Guard: "Go! Call me immediately when you are on board. My rescue people are in front of the bow."
The Coast Guard said Schettino defied their entreaties to return to his ship as the chaotic evacuation of some 4,200 people was in progress.
Corriere della Sera also reports that the crew mutinied, ordering passengers into lifeboats before the captain issued an abandon ship order.
You can hear the audio here. If memory serves me right, a Captain who abandons a shipwreck in this manner in Italy can be sentenced to 12 years or more in jail; as it should be.
UPDATE: Via SJS on FB;

86 comments:

GBS said...

Additionally, there should be a manslaughter charge for every death associated with this fiasco.

Even the original "old yellow stain" didn't leave his ship.

Spade said...

Was that picture taken when he was in command of the Love Boat?

sid said...

The Sirens got another one...

Byron said...

Yes, 12 years for abandoning his ship while in duress and not making sure every passenger is off before he leaves and manslaughter charges. Hope to hell he gets to meet Guido in the joint who makes him his bitch...repeatedly...and then shares.

sid said...

Of course, they look like this these days.

Mike M. said...

I suspect he'll wind up with a bottle of vino...and a Beretta with one round.

Old Farter said...

Kind of looks like a young David Hasselhoff.

Largebill said...

Beyond disgusting level of cowardice. With some jobs your compensation is not just for what you do on regular good days, but are for what you will be expected to do when the crap hits the fan. He was paid with the expectation that he'd go down with the ship unless every passenger was off first.

ewok40k said...

"Lord Jim" should be required lecture for all aspiring officers, both in merchant marine and navy... at the very least.

SWOINATOR said...

I read today that he took the ship close to shore to show off for the Chief Cook.  One hell of a joy ride fly by I guess.

I am thinking keel haul should not be ruled out in this case.  Drag him over the bottom of his own ship... once it is free of the rocks of course.

James said...

I've been wondering if the navigation system didnt fuck them up. Will be intersting to see in the coming days.

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

Joseph Conrad is smiling down at you

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

He may be in bigger trouble than he knows.  What if one of the passengers was connected?

Byron said...

He better pray not. It'd take him a LONG time to die if they were...

CGB said...

Clearly this captain is not related to Fabrizio Quattrocchi.

C-dore 14 said...

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for him to receive the full 12 years.  Italian law is full of offenses and draconian punishments which are seldom enforced or applied.

Grumpy Old Ham said...

Geez, have the members of the Front Porch not learned anything from Thursdays?  Clearly this accident was the result of not enough Diversity within the ship's crew!

OutlawMike said...

Exact opposites, indeed.

OutlawMike said...

Uh... macchia giallo?

UltimaRatioRegis said...

Allow me to translate:

"Hey!  Wassamotta!  How come-a U not onna da ship?"

"But da ship, she's-a sinkin!"

"U getta you ass onna da ship, ya chooch, ya!"

"I no wanna getta back onna da ship!"

"Datsa tough toenails!  U-a da Captain for cryin' out loud!"

"Butta da passengers, summa dem pretty upset!  Day find out Imma da Captain?  Whoo-boy!"

"Looka here, mister!  You a gonna go to jail!  Iffa U lucky!  Me, I am pissed enough to calla my brudda Frankie frumma Palermo!"

"Whadda U brudda Frankie do?"

"He putta two inna U hat, smart-ass!"

Galrahn said...

"Yellow stain" made me lol.

DeltaBravo said...

Almost, Mike.  Macchia gialla... feminine noun takes feminine adjectival ending.

sid said...

Opined in other venues.

Retired Now said...

When in danger, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Caine_Mutiny

quoted from old by Herman Wouk in 1951. 

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

Oh here we go with the bad Italian jokes.

Sigh...I always laugh when Irish men make fun of anyone's ethnicity......

Surfcaster said...

That's not Italian, that's Jersey.

Grandpa Bluewater said...

Not good. Very not good. The book should be interesting.

UltimaRatioRegis said...

No, no, that is actual Italian.  I saw it in a movie. 

Not Irish.  German and Polish.  Nobody ever tells Polish jokes...  8-)

The Usual Suspect said...

<span>DB, or pisciare macchia judging from the trouble he is in and is going to be in in the near future.  That was a prepositional nightmare!
</span>

TheThunderingHerd said...

Be interesting when we find out who was on on the bridge with him.  Here in Washington State the ferry Elwa (385 feet, 2800 gross tons) went on the rocks in Grindstone harbor (great name for a place to ground) on 10/2/83.  Turned out the skipper was showing a (female) passenger how her house looked from the water.  Nobody hurt, the Elwa was repaired, but it sold a lot of "Elwa on the rocks" drinks in the local bars.  A little north the BC ferry Queen of the North (409 feet, 8,889 gross tons) sank on 03/22/06 after the forth officer and quartermaster put it on Gil Island a little after midnight.  Turned out the forth officer and quartermaster had just ended a "romantic relationship" and were engaged in a personal conversation for the 14 minutes before the Queen of the North struck.  Sadly, two passengers died.  I wonder who was on the bridge of the Costa Concordia. 

ewok40k said...

reportedly cpatain was showing off a local island to a friends amongst passengers...

ewok40k said...

He is a required lecture in all our highschools, anyway... In my case it was "Typhoon", but most schools take "Lord Jim". Not that it stopped me from devouring both, and "Heart of darkness" the same year... was a book geek before the computers came.

QMC(SS) said...

Sad, but probably true, Commodore.  Which brings me to a question of sorts:

As the Admiralty Courts have the bottom line in determining fault, it's my understanding that, before any CIVIL prosecution can move forward, an Admiralty judge must first make a determination of "Probable Cause" (though not necessarily a final determination), correct? 

Actus Rhesus said...

yeah, sorry...not funny.

UltimaRatioRegis said...

Doctor, quick! 

AR has had a failure of her sense of humor gland!

Old Nuke said...

As a licensed US Merchant Marine Officer, I find the skipper's actions indefensable.  Granted that my service is not on those big floating hotels, but rather ships serving the Gulf oil patch ... but even in life boat and abandon ship drills, the skipper was the last to leave.

What makes matters worse is old Macchia Gialla hailed a taxi to get farther away from the incident.  They even found that he had changed out of his uniform and into civilian clothes.

Rumor has it that he raided the ships' safe on the way out.

Old Nuke said...

From what I gather, the bridge crew is nothing but a bunch of look-outs.  The ship follows a pre-programmed course every time so they always arrive at the same way point, same time, same spot in the ocean every week .... well except when the captain orders a deviation.

What a boring watch ... OTTO-PILOT has the helm, add to that  AIS and collision avoidance software feeding orders to OTTO .... what is a deck officer to do other than give tours of the bridge?

Brendan Doran said...

Vava a bordo, Cazzo!!

but seriously, WTF is that a joke pic?  He looks like a porn pardoy of The Loveboat.  Open shirt, chest hair?  Really?

Actus Rhesus said...

Pardon me if I don't find the humor in someone mocking the culture of my grandparents.

Naval_Historian said...

Submission for the award: The Miles Davis Memorial Trophy. Adam Sandler fans will get it.

cdrsalamander said...

AR,


Vada a bordo, cazzo!

cdrsalamander said...

http://www.youtube.com/v/jIakAawr1mA&feature" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="170" height="140

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

@URR, no need to.  Plenty of history books out there.

C-dore 14 said...

@ewok, <span>Lord Jim</span> was required reading at my high school during senior year as well.  The "Honors English" class also had to read his novella, "The Secret Sharer".

C-dore 14 said...

@QMC, Not sure.  You'd probably need an opinion by one of the lawyers who post here.  Suspect the fact that all of this took place within Italian territorial waters may complicate matters.

C-dore 14 said...

@Old Nuke, A "bunch of lookouts" who command a rather substantial salary.  Although nothing compared to the ferry engineers who worked out a tremendous per diem scam until one of the Seattle TV news reporters started looking into it.

UltimaRatioRegis said...

Hang on, let me build up some self-righteous indignation about you mocking my great-grandparents' heritage....

LT Rusty said...

I'm Irish.

Quick, what's your ethnicity, I may know some good jokes!

(I know a bunch of Paddy jokes too, but I'm always on the lookout for more ... got some good ones?)

LT Rusty said...

URR - the humor gland is removed in law school.  Otherwise, attorneys would never be able to keep a straight face while presenting some of the prosecutions / defenses you hear about in the news.

OutlawMike said...

I KNEW it! Okay, you're smarter than me!

DeltaBravo said...

LOL.  Naw,  Just a grammar nazi.  For the entire world.

Old Nuke said...

Commodore:  You are probably right about the substantial salary, but one wonders what it compare to the day rates paid onboard US-flag ships?  Might be an interesting comparison.

CAPT JAP (RET -Deceased?) said...

I was just wondering and maybe I shouldn't be for my own sanity. On our new "diverse" Navy vessels, when abandon ship is sounded and it is women and children first do the male sailors have to wait for the female sailors? How do you count gays? What about transvestites?  What does the  Female Captain do, is she supposed to go with the women and children ordown with the ship? Do the males have to wait for her to leave first?

My head hurts............ :( ............... ;) .

GBS said...

Why wait???

Actus Rhesus said...

no, I do have a sense of humor...I just require jokes to be...you know...funny and not some tired old trope based on stereotypes and accent mockery.

Casey Tompkins said...

Nope. The captain manually altered course to do a very close sail-by.

Casey Tompkins said...

I guess you don't like Rocky, Bullwinkle, and Whassmatta U? ;)

Casey Tompkins said...

I do believe the new standard is: everybody all at once, except the white boys. They have to go down with the ship, because of racism 'n' stuff.

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

You can mock the Italian Navy all you want, but when you start talking about Italians and Americans of Italian descent being uneducated rubes, you and I will part company.  I'm a big fan of yours, URR, but fan or not, I will knock out anyone who insults my family.  I know you'd do the same.

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

No, but I am a huge fan of western civilization, culture, technology and Christ's Catholic Church.  Things that, while not started in Italy, were made great by Romans, and made even better in America.

MR T's Haircut said...

Lighten Up Francis's.....

sid said...

And he said the rocks "weren't charted"

paycheck bet says that he succumbed to a tacit belief int he infallibility of his electronic navigation system.

Just as happend on the San Francisco Port Royal, and whichever DDG that was standing into Hampton Roads (Mitscher?)

pk said...

tell me AR, if you held your grandmothers hands still could she carry on a conversation???

jus wonderin.

C

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

Read Secret Sharer in 9th grade; Lord Jim in 10th. Our Honors English professors were ambitious:  we paid the price.

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

Here comes the Front Porch A Team, riding to the rescue....

T, I'm sure that Murdoch here can argue for himself 8-)

I'm pretty sure a "sorry, no offense intended" would have ended this long ago.

DeltaBravo said...

Murphy approached Mulligan's bar. On the step outside he was accosted by a nun, Sister Marie, who said:

'Surely a fine man like yourself is not goin' into this den of iniquity? Surely you're not goin' to waste your hard-earned cash on the devil's brew. Why don't you go home and feed and clothe your wife and children?'

'Hang on, Sister,' spluttered Murphy. 'How can you condemn alcohol out of hand? Surely 'tis wrong to form such a rash judgement when you've never even tasted the stuff?'

'Very well,' said Sister Marie. "I'll taste it just to prove my point. Obviously I can't go into the pub, so why don't you bring me some gin. Oh, and just to camouflage my intent, maybe you should be bring'in it in a cup and not a glass!'

'OK,' said Murphy and into the bar he breezed. nd

'I'll have a large gin,' he said to the barman. 'And can you put it in a cup?'

'My God,' said the barman, 'that nun's not outside again is she?'

~~~~~~~~~~~
I think I got it all... stereotypes and accent mockery.  :)

LT Rusty said...

Good one, DB!

Q: What do you call a 6-pack and a potato?
A:  An authentic 7-course Irish meal.

Q: What do you call an Irishman with a switchblade and a .38?
A:  A pacifist!

Q: What's 3 miles long, has 22,000 legs, and smells like vomit, stale urine and alcohol?
A:  The St. Patrick's Day Parade.


I love Irish jokes, and so do my ancestors at least as far back as the boat that carried them from Derry & Belfast.

UltimaRatioRegis said...

AOD,

You gotta be kidding.  If I were offended by every Polish joke and Marine joke I get here and elsewhere, I would be in a permanent state of outrage. 

MTH is correct.  Lighten up, will ya?

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

Sigh, I guess I better start sending cocoa and hot apple pies up on the food/drink elevator, until you all sink into starch induced torpor.

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

Or the MISSOURI at Hampton Roads.

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

You aren't biased, there, are you, Ewok?

UltimaRatioRegis said...

The best Polish jokes I hear are from Polocks, the best Jewish jokes from Jewish people, the best Irish jokes from Micks, and the best Italian jokes from Italians. 

ewok40k said...

I can only hope nowadays literature professors are as ambitious...

sid said...

Quite so Scott...

But look those others. In each case they let the box navigate.

Its mighty easy to allow those pretty pictures make you believe.

Its not just nav. I first started pondering this when the Vincennes shot down the airliner, but the Sides correctly id'd the aircraft as comair.

How could that happen?

Its a huma factors problem that if you make it very concise and very pretty, its way too easy to bite into whats presented hook line and sinker regardless of how valid the data presented actually is.

"The Vincennes Effect"

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

I love old time radio, and on Fibber McGee and Molly, they were always making fun and telling polish jokes about the sponsor, Johnson Wax.

DeltaBravo said...

Huge fan of those too.

PK said...

hey i got that one from a third generation italian.

C

ewok40k said...

Actually I can tell one semi-related... After a sinking of a transoceanic liner , 2 sharks meet. First is all contorting in pain "I have devoured a Russian general, all the decorations make my stomach churn". Second is barely better "I have eaten American businessmen, my gut is completely clogged with the greenbacks from his wallet". Suddenly  third shark appears, in suspiciuously good spirits. "Why are you so happy?" ask the 2 sharks - "I've eaten a Pole!" explains the newcomer. "Impossible! Let me smell your breath!" (for vodka...)

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

alright, I'm done.  I said my piece, but I'm not willing to start a war on the porch with people I respect.  Moving on :)

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

unfortunately, they are not.  Parents demand "AP" courses to defray the costs of college and hope that their children will graduate in 3 years instead of four.  What they fail to realize is that time in the university system and exposure to quality academic rigor (if that still exists) is just as important as the information that you learn and the degree you walk away from.  It's the experience, Stupid.  So, instead of focusing on classical English literature, measures of meaning, literary interpretation and analysis, logical case development and writing style, professors spend their days teaching the AP exam.  What a tragedy.

Adversus Omnes Dissident said...

<span>unfortunately, they are not.  Parents demand "AP" courses to defray the costs of college and hope that their children will graduate in 3 years instead of four.  What they fail to realize is that time in the university system and exposure to quality academic rigor (if that still exists) is just as important as the information that you learn and the degree you walk away with.  It's the experience, Stupid.  So, instead of focusing on classical English literature, measures of meaning, literary interpretation and analysis, logical case development and writing style, professors spend their days teaching the AP exam.  What a tragedy.</span>

C-dore 14 said...

@AOD, 10th grade (aka "The 4th Form" where I went to school) was devoted to American Lit (<span>Walden</span>, <span>Life on the Mississippi</span>, <span>Moby Dick</span>, etc.) ;)

DeltaBravo said...

AOD, your premise would be entirely valid if:
1.  That extra year didn't set parents or students back between $10,000 and $45,000 depending on tuition, room, board and books.
2.  The professors actually knew how to teach and were not fready leftovers and leftist rejects from the 1960s.
3.  That extra year among drug-addled and alcohol-soaked peers couldn't have been better spent in an internship working with adults in an office. 

Until academia lowers its prices and raises its own standards, 3 years is better than 4.

DeltaBravo said...

*freaky leftovers

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