Captains of seafaring ships are looked upon as heroes, and often it is sailing folklore, but is portrayed as individuals who will sacrifice their own lives for those of passengers and crew and will pay the ultimate price of going down with a sinking ship, as allegedly was the case with Captain Smith of the Titanic.

However, this was not the case last Friday evening when Captain Francesco Shettino piloted the $450 million Costa Concordia with 4,200 persons on board, too close to the island of Giglio, showboating his ship as he did once before, ran into rocks tearing a 160 foot hole in the hull; the ship listed to the starboard side, eventually capsizing near the shoreline.

Before the ship toppled over, Captain Shettino moved the ship to within 1,000 feet of the rocky shore, gave the order to abandon ship and then he himself was among the first off the ship leaving the majority of the passengers to fend for themselves.

The Italian coast guard ordered – pleaded on marine radio – with the captain who was allegedly on a life boat alongside the ship, to get back on board and direct the evacuation and provide critical information about the status of passengers on board such as women, children and the elderly.  The captain, who could have been selected out of Hollywood central casting to play the role, refused to return to his post.

Today he is known as ‘Captain Coward’ and ‘Chicken of the Sea,’ an embarrassment to himself, the cruise line and all of Italy.

To date, 11 people are dead, 29 missing.  Captain Shettino is under house arrest in Sorrento, expected to be prosecuted on multiple manslaughter charges, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all passengers were evacuated.

Passengers denounced the captain and crew for incompetence, lack of instructions and direction during the two hour period after the ship ran aground.

According to numerous reports from passengers, there were no lifeboat drills or instructions before the ship left port outside of Rome.  Two hours later the ship ran aground and capsized.

The Italian cruse line that owns the ship, the parent company being the Carnival Corp., out of Miami, Florida, said Captain Shettino deviated from the authorized computerized course scheduled for the ship.

However, the company provided no explanation as to why it once before deviated from the computerized course, going past the very same island, blasting their ship horns, all of which was highly publicized.

The captain said the rocks he ran into were not on the charts, the coast guard debunked the claim stating they are on all the charts.

Most new cruise ships are designed today to accommodate a sinking ship so that it does so evenly by controlling its ballast tanks, by moving water from one side of the ship to the other, allowing life boats to be put in the water from both sides of the ship.

But Captain Shettino moved the vessel closer to the shoreline, not allowing it to sink evenly, but perhaps causing it to capsize on the edge of a cliff with deep water below.  His lawyer claims the captain actually saved thousands of lives by moving the ship within 1,000 feet of shore allowing passengers to swim ashore.

Bad weather is now moving in on Giglio and it is feared the ship will slip off the cliff into deep water spilling some half million gallons of fuel.  Rescue divers have been removed from the ship because of the dangers.

This cruising disaster hits the industry in the heart of its season, and during a period of time when more new cruise ships are being built to accommodate the booming cruise line business.

Although we have had cruising disasters over centuries of sailing the seas, it has always been considered a safe, luxurious and pleasurable way of travel and seeing the world.

The question here will be, did the cruise line take short cuts in its safety policies and did it violate maritime law?  There is ample alleged evidence of obvious incompetence on behalf of the captain and crew.

It is expected that class action suits against the cruise line will be in the range of $600 million, stock prices in Carnival Corp have dropped significantly.