A scenario

[Kapitan]

Please give your thoughts and opinions on this matter and vote, thankyou.

You are master of a cruise ship that is carrying 2,000 passengers bound for england, your more than three quarters of the way to england when a tanker collides with your ship.

The tanker backs off and steams more than 10 miles away to safty, you know that there are fatalities as the tanker has ripped open your hull and killed people in thier cabins while they are asleep.

You send out a distress call is it urgent? you ship has already developed a 12 degree list to port, and is down 11 feet by the bow.

Time passes by slowly, an hour later your still sending the distress call, your ship is now listing 25 degrees to port and is down more than 30 feet by the bow.

Will you order the abandon ship?

If you order the abandon ship you leave the people to fend for themselves in the cold waters of the atlantic, but if you dont order the abandon ship you may risk taking them down with the ship.

What do you do?

two hours pass by its now offical the ship is sinking it cannot be saved, if you orderd abandon ship above would you stay with the ship untill she goes down and jump off, or will you go down with her?

[Skybird]

I hope I'd be courageous enough that I'd stay aboard as long as I can do at least something to save passenger's lives, for they put their lives in my hand when boarding, and thus I have the obilgation to help them as best as I can.

But I see no obligation in this tradition of captains going down with their ships. I would leave when I am totally 100% sure that there is nothing I can do anymore, and cannot help to save even a single passenger anymore, and my crew. I hope I would not leave earlier.

Are cardrivers that survive an accident in which people got killed obligated to kill themselves?

However, there is the issue of the burden of guilt. I do not know, but there were incidents in the past wehre I, as a reader or viewer, thought: that poor dog survives the mess he created, now he will need to live with it - wondering if he would prefer to have been killed, too?

Also, some old guy who knows nothing but his ship in his life may feel his dreams going into shatters, and life's meaning fading. I will not talk bad about a captain choosing to end his life along with the life of his ship . But it would not be my choice, if there is no purpose beyond these sentiments.

I can imagine situations where a purpose being achieved is a necessity - and my individual survival not necessarily is a precondtion for that, to put it this way. I of course hope I avoid such situations in my life, at least until I became a little bit older.

Such extreme situations do make little sense to try to answer them in advance, Kapitain. Men who boast with self-confidence and appear to be courageous and noble - could eventually turn into wimps and brutal egoists once they are in such a situation, while wimps and grey mice nobody took ever note of suddenly could grow beyond their limitations. You'll see what kind of guy you are dealing with once you and him are in that kind of situation. Words are cheap. It's the extremes in life that separates the phoneys from the heroes. and most heroism is being shown in eveyday life anyway, and is not noticed by anyone.

Are you willing to accept death in an unsensational way, without audience that applaudes your heroism, and history even not taking care, not to m,ention: note of it? Fulfillment of duty that will never being realised by anyone, and not expecting any kind of reward or payback from fate for your decisions, and acting? That is heroism, too: to fulfill your duty while accepting to be a nobody. Call it stoicism, if you want.

No vote from me. I'm not made to understand the reasons you give for each of the options you set up.

[Kaleu. Jochen Mohr]

its a captains duty to go off the ship as last person. this includes the dead.
so practicaly the captain go's down with the ship.

[Oberon]

I'd be the last person off, I wouldn't go down with the ship, I want to swim over and sort that blind tanker captain out, has he never heard of things called radio, radar or GPS?

Also, I'd transfer the passengers to the tanker, chances are she's weathered the collision better than my ship, and she has a responsibility to aid me.

[Linton]

A captain's responsibility is to his passengers and their survival.This of course also means the phase after the evacuation.I would make sure the ship is clear and then evacuate with a copy of my navigation chart to enable me to have the Tanker captain prosecuted for negligence!

[fatty]

I would send out the may day (urgent) once the list has developed - list means taking on water or your bouyancy is otherwise compromised. 2,000 people aren't worth screwing around to see if it works itself out.

I wouldn't order abandon ship yet, but I would order everyone into life jackets and survival gear and to stand by life boats. Hopefully after two hours another ship will be on station to take on the passangers, but once it becomes obvious that she's going down, we must abandon.

I'd be the last man off but not go down, that's just silly and fantastical.

[STEED]

Interesting question this, its like a fighter pilot whose plane is out of control and 9 times out of 10 he will go down with his plane a try to control the crash in a populated area.

Back to the question the captain of a sinking ship has to coordinate the evacuation and in sure he is the last off the boat. Of course he will have to take in to account the weather conditions where they are how fast is the ship sinking and so on and hopefully plan out his actions as best as he can. Even the life of the captain is not worth throwing away on a ship and why should he, human life out ways metal and money.

[Prof]

Originally Posted by Kaleu. Jochen Mohr

its a captains duty to go off the ship as last person. this includes the dead.
so practicaly the captain go's down with the ship.

Could I ask why you believe that the captain must sacrifice his own life to fulfill his 'duty' to the dead?

In my opinion the captain should stay on board the ship as long as possible in order to coordinate the evacuation. This obviously puts his life in danger compared to getting off as soon as possible. However, once it's clear that the orderly evacuation is at an end (i.e. the ship is actually going under), there is no advantage to be gained by staying with the ship and the captain should leave if possible.

In the situation described by Kapitan, I would say that any collision involving passenger-carrying vessels is life-threatening so the first thing I would do is to send out mayday signals and have people assemble at the life-boat stations. If your list is 12 degrees and getting worse, you don't want to be hanging around to see what develops.

[Penelope_Grey]

I'd do as much as I could as quickly as I could, within the parameters of reasonable safety. Once it was apparant that my life was in danger of ending I would abandon ship too and hopefully I would be efficient enough to make sure as many passengers as possible got to safety.

I sure as hell would not stay aboard to die, in any situation.

[Kapitan]

My personal view is this,

As soon as collission has ended ie the other ship has pulled away i would send out distress calls, i would get the surviving passengers and crew to the life boat decks in full survival gear and be ready to abandon ship.

I would then personally go along with the first officer and two engineers to assess the damage to the ship if they said, no she is a total loss she is going down i would then order abandon ship, i would make absolutly sure every single person alive on that ship was in a life boat.

I would then return to the bridge get all the navigational charts and logs and hand them to my first officer, i would then return to the bridge and go down with her.

[sunvalleyslim]

I'm sorry Penelope but your answer suggests that your life is more important than some of your passengers. Who do you leave behind, women, children, elderly, or the disabled? Are they not also your responsibilty? You are the Captain of the Ship, You are also responsible for this castatrophe. Two ships cannot collide without each party being responsible. That responsibilty remains solely yours. If you leave the Ship with people aboard needing rescueing, your fate at the Board of Inquiry will indeed be sealed. And you would never command another ship again........Just merely my opinion

[Penelope_Grey]

Originally Posted by Kapitan

I would then return to the bridge get all the navigational charts and logs and hand them to my first officer, i would then return to the bridge and go down with her.

Ok everything you put before that above quote is sound.

But for your quote here, what is the point in that? Really, that is just for want of a better term, suicide, nobody would thank you for doing that, nobody would say what a terrific bloke you are, in fact they would probably be sat there wondering why you chose to die rather than to be saved.

Life is precious, and no I am not Catholic, but, to say "I would go down with the ship" as in - deliberately drown yourself - when there would be no need to as all ships are required to provide means for all aboard to escape, you are either crazy, or pulling our legs. Sorry to be blunt, but I don't know how else to articulate myself.

[Penelope_Grey]

Originally Posted by sunvalleyslim

I'm sorry Penelope but your answer suggests that your life is more important than some of your passengers. Who do you leave behind, women, children, elderly, or the disabled? Are they not also your responsibilty? You are the Captain of the Ship, You are also responsible for this castatrophe. Two ships cannot collide without each party being responsible. That responsibilty remains solely yours. If you leave the Ship with people aboard needing rescueing, your fate at the Board of Inquiry will indeed be sealed. And you would never command another ship again........Just merely my opinion

That's preferable to death in my opinion.

Looking at it from a cold and purely logical point of view, me gallantly going down with the ship won't save the people on board who didn't get off in time.

[Kapitan]

Not to forget the jail term, the captain of the oceanos who abandond ship before his passengers he was convicted of the following:

Gross mis conduct
negligence
Endangering human life
Breaking of multiple international regulations

If she had sunk with one life lost i would say murder as well or manslaughter

Think he got 17 years for that one.

[Kapitan]

The way i see it is if every person is alive and they get off then i will abandon ship, however if some one has died onboard under my command then as it says in the bible eye for an eye tooth for a tooth, they borded my vessel put thier life in my hands and trusted me not to take that all away from them, and i did therefore it is only right that i too should suffer the same fate by going down with the ship.