Should captains "go down with the ship"?

[Godhumor]

In the recent past we have had two high profile nautical disasters with numerous deaths. In each case, the captain has been one of the first off the ship. In the case of the Concordia, the captain was, reportedly, ordered many times to reboard his vessel until all passengers were off (He refused).

CNN has an article about the tradition of captains being last off a vessel and it got me thinking on this subject. I work in a marine industry, and I believe, firmly, that the captain's first responsibility is to assuring the safety of his crew and passengers. While I don't hold any weight with the notion the captain should sink with the vessel, he or she has a responsibility to account for every individual before abandoning ship.

I am in the camp that the captain (And the chief engineer for the below deck world) is the last one off a distressed vessel.

[catbyte]

1. I agree with you on that one. Bailing while passengers drown is just so despicable.

Hell, there was a female employee who helped many passengers off the boat & saved many lives. Passengers urged her to come with them, but she said that employees should get off the boat last. They found her body floating nearby.

[hlthe2b]

2. I certainly think they should stay to ensure all who CAN be saved, are saved...

I'm not advocating that they refuse to be rescued if there are those who can't be saved, but I certainly think they should be at the end of the rescue (and not the front of the line).

[NuclearDem]

3. As long as there are passengers or lower-ranking crewmen that can be evacuafed

Then yes, the captain absolutely should stay onboard. The last thing that's needed in a situation like that is for the chain of command to be disrupted.

But if everyone else is off the ship, then there's absolutely no reason for the captain to stay.

[pipi_k]

4. Like some

of the others here, I do believe that the captain has the responsibility to make sure all passengers and crew are safe before getting off the ship himself, but not to the extreme where he purposely sacrifices himself in the "noble" attempt to actually go down with his ship.

[2naSalit]

5. Captain should be last to leave sinking ship, period.

It is their responsibility, anything less is shirking that responsibility, unless they fell off during a collision, removed by pirates or something as unusual as that. There's a "pecking order" for a reason... responsibility.

[Blue_Tires]

6. +1

all things being equal, a captain should always be the last (or one of the last) living people to abandon ship...

[Nay]

7. Well, they should at least help some passengers off before they hightail

it off the boat themselves, for god's sake. In fact, they should stay on at least as long as their lowly employees stayed on, don't you think?

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. It should be the captain's responsibility to assure that the evacuation plan is being followed...

To the best of his or her ability.

The captain of the concordia failed.

I think most of the captain's responsibilities are before the crisis.

[niyad]

11. could you provide a list of how many female captains have abandoned their ships in a crisis?

and compare that to the list of male captains who have done so.

[yawnmaster]

13. Do you think lumberjack_jeff is somehow highlighting women as abandoneers???

I don't see that at all.

Do they keep lists of the order of abandonment on ships??

[niyad]

14. you can see whatever you wish.

[yawnmaster]

15. Of course I can! I'm asking what you are seeing. eom

[Gormy Cuss]

21. Why else would it be put in italics?

Note that all but one poster prior to that had not used gender specific pronouns and lumberjack_jeff's reply was not directed at the person who used male pronouns. So why is so important to make that distinction, since the majority of posters were not assuming that ship's captains are always men?

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. The OP says "his crew...". The presumption is that men are captains and they go down with the ship.

I'm curious if pointing out that women can and should be ship captains changes that perception.

The conflict between the topic of the OP and "women and children first" is worth exploring, implicitly in this case.

[Godhumor]

26. And it also has he or she a sentence later

I just missed that one.

[lumberjack_jeff]

27. I missed that sentence. Mea culpa. n/t

[Gormy Cuss]

32. "Women and children first" was more fantasy than reality.

It was largely a British concept and never really considered maritime law, whereas a captain abandoning ship is actionable in some countries.

More women and children survived the sinking of the Titantic but many more women died while men were saved. I saw a detailed analysis a few years back that suggested class of passage was the most important determinant of whether a person was offered a spot in the lifeboats, not gender or youth.

A captain is responsible to the ship's owner for the safe passage of the vessels and the persons and goods transported. It's fundamental to the job and captains receive compensation and prestige based on that status.That said, I don't agree with the notion that the captain should be expected to go down with a ship after all humans have been evacuated.


As to your point, based on the way most responders in this thread used nonspecific language, I'm betting that the answer is no, it wouldn't change the perception at all if the ship's captain were a woman.

[EX500rider]

31. Can you give a list of how many female captains of large commercial ships there are?

[niyad]

36. perhaps you should address your query to lumberjack_jeff, who appears to have

knowledge of this information.

[CreekDog]

18. sounds like you abandoned your post once people pointed out it sounded sexist

ironic in a thread about not abandoning ship.

[lumberjack_jeff]

23. It's sexist to suggest that ships captains might be women? Srsly?

Y'all crack me up sometimes.

[whistler162]

28. Dang'd if you do, dang'd if you don't.

[Finnmccool]

9. I don't know, I do know

they shouldn't jump off the boat and tell everyone else to stay on.

[Blue Owl]

10. Those old school captains were married to the sea

Nowadays it seems like there should be better technology and education to avoid major catastrophes, so ideally everyone can survive.

Especially seeing that pilots are never expected to go down with their planes (ejection seats, parachutes, etc)...

[thucythucy]

35. When that airliner ditched in the Hudson River years back

wasn't the flight captain the last person off the plane? I seem to remember he actually checked twice to make sure all the passengers and crew were off, before he himself got into the raft.

Personally, I doubt I'd have that kind of courage, but I hugely admire those that do.

[MattBaggins]

12. I disagree with them going down with the ship

but even in the Army we had the practice of the senior NCO's and Officers ate last and had to account for personal in the case of a "strategic redeployment to the rear".

[Iggo]

16. Not necessarily. But they do need to be the last person off the ship.

[Silent3]

17. If there's something the captain can actually be doing to save others, that seems reasonable.

But if staying until the end would be risking death for a purely symbolic gesture, then it's a dumb idea.

[Spider Jerusalem]

19. They shouldn't go down with the ship, if it can be avoided...

but they have a moral and legal responsibility to the lives of the passengers and crew and should be the last off, not the first.

[Xithras]

20. I disagree with many here. It's a job.

Last edited Mon Apr 21, 2014, 02:50 PM - Edit history (1)

And nobody should be expected to die for their job. No title or paycheck is worth a human life.

Captains should be expected to remain onboard to do their jobs, so long as they can safely do so. When it becomes clear that staying onboard any longer places their lives in immediate danger, they should be permitted to leave like anyone else.

The way I see it, it's like the police and firefighters. People in those jobs are expected to keep a calm head in an emergency and to assist as many people as possible. But, when it becomes clear that a perp has an armor piercing weapon, or a building is about to collapse on their heads, or that further efforts on their part aren't going to result in any more lives saved, they have the right to pull back and save themselves. Even if that choice means that others will die.

I see no reason why a ships captain should be held to a higher standard than a policeman or a firefighter.

[tammywammy]

24. I agree. n/t

[malaise]

25. Let me put it this way as regards this ship

When a captain tells people's teenage children to stay calm and remain where they are while he and other crew members scramble for safety, there are few options left to deal with men that like.

Everyone on that shop could still be alive if that crew was a professional set up rather than narcissistic sociopaths.

And yes, captains must go down with their ships.

[brooklynite]

29. "Go Down With The Ship" isn't the real point...

There isn't an obligation for the Captain to drown on a sinking ship; there's an obligation for the Captain to remain on the ship as long as there are passenger on board needing assistance.

[rumdude]

30. No, because it's sexist!

[mn9driver]

33. Speaking as a "captain",

I have the responsibility to make sure EVERYTHING has been done to ensure the safety of my passengers and crew on every single trip. Sometimes the best way to do that is by delegating and supervising. Other times, I do it myself. It depends on the circumstances and it is IMPOSSIBLE to determine in advance which path to take for every possible scenario.

I've never had to take charge of a really bad scenario where the lives of all of my charges are at serious risk. This is also part of my job; to avoid ever taking risks with the people who are trusting me with their lives. It is the most important part of my job.

That being said, if such a scenario were to happen, my job, my absolute duty, would be to ensure the safety of everyone, both passengers and crew. I would do that in the best, most effective possible way, doing whatever had to be done in the existing circumstance.

The personal safety of the captain is only important in the sense that he is the best on-scene resource to ensure the safety of everyone else. Abandoning an aircraft or a vessel if that is not the best way to accomplish that, is dereliction of duty.

There is no way to decide in advance what the best thing is. As a captain, you have to make the call in real time. And you had better get it right.

[DirkGently]

34. That says it well.

I assume the initial cultural impulse for "going down with the ship" is just what you're talking about -- embracing responsibility for the vessel and the safety of her passengers and crew.

People make it sound like it's supposed to be some kind of sacrificial apology.

Ideally, everyone gets out alive. Captains and crew look bad only when it looks like they abandoned their duty to passengers in order to save themselves.