The Captain

Recently a news article appeared stating that a ship captain and  second officer were jailed as a result of a New Zealand cargo ship disaster. You may remember the container ship ran aground last year, resulting in New Zealand's worst maritime environmental disaster. The sentence for both is seven months in jail. They were guilty of a total of 11 offenses, including ' willfully attempting to pervert  the course of justice by altering ship's documents subsequent to the grounding.'


' After the passage plan for the vessel's journey had been plotted, the captain gave approval for the second  officer to deviate from the plan to save time! The subsequent changes to the ships course which were not verified using appropriate navigational methods, put the vessel directly on target to hit the Astrolabe Reef. '


But that's not the end of the story, "About ten minutes before the grounding, the reef appeared as an echo on the ship's radar. At this stage, there was still sufficient time to make an effective alteration of course and avoid the reef!  The captain saw the echo and assumed it was a small vessel - but when he could not find it, he dismissed it as a false echo!" The rest is history.

One hundred years ago, a certain Captain Smith of the SS Titanic was so confident his ship was ' unsinkable '  that he ignored the warnings regarding icebergs in the area. We all know what happened on that dreadful night of April 15, 1912! 

More recently, on January 13, 2012 the cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground in the Mediterranean Sea. You all have heard about it and seen the pictures; a beautiful, half a billion dollar ship laying on it's side, shipwrecked with the loss of more than 50 lives. What a waste, what a tragedy! What could possibly have gone wrong?   These modern ships are all equipped with electronic charts showing their GPS positions from several different angles. Any deviation from the plan entered into this system usually triggers an alarm making it virtually impossible to run aground.


Again, was it  human failure.  Story has it that, Antonella Tievoli, headwaiter on the Costa Concordia was invited by the captain to join him on the bridge.  Knowing that Tievoli's sister lived on the island of Giglio the captain deviated from his chartered course ordering the vessel to cruise at least 4 miles closer to the island. He also ordered an increase in speed to 16 knots, a very high speed for a large vessel less than a mile from the coast line.....
We all know the rest of the story.
 

There is a similar story in the Bible. You'll find it in Acts 27. Take time to read the whole chapter........  It's amazing how detailed Luke describes the storm, shipwreck and survival in this chapter.  We read how Paul, God's missionary to the Gentiles, having already experienced being shipwrecked several times, warned the men in charge. "Men, I can see that our voyage is going to be disastrous and bring great loss to ship and cargo, and to our own lives also." But the centurion, instead of listening to what Paul said, followed the advice of the pilot ( captain ) and owner of the ship. What follows is disaster. Yet............ all were saved, every one reached land in safety. Paul had to stand trial before Caesar and he had to preach the gospel in Rome........ "Boldly and without hindrance he preached the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ."