The sight of a stricken ship lying on its side in shallow waters is always a tragic one. When people lose their lives the tragedy is, of course, very real. So the daily story of the sinking of the Costa Concordia, with its attendant background picture of the listing vessel, ensures the tragedy stays in our minds.

Stories emerging of the events surrounding the disaster are becoming increasingly bizarre. Experts in maritime law – a subject, co-incidentally, to be covered in some depth in the next issue of Your Expert Witness magazine – have been appearing on television explaining variously whether the ship design was inherently unstable, whether the charts were wrong and latterly whether the captain was at fault in taking the course he did.

What made my jaw drop was the replaying of voice recordings by the Italian coastguard ordering the captain back on board the sinking ship to declare it abandoned. I can’t be the only person who viewed heroic stories of skippers ‘going down with their ship’ as being just that – stories of derring-do from the pages of Hotspur and the like. It appears not to be the case; the law of the seas requires a ship’s captain to take responsibility for everyone on board right to the very last.

The coastguard concerned has himself become something of a celebrity. This one’s gonna run and run.

As usual, expert witness comment is offered by those in the know, many of whom are to be found at the Expert Witness directory on this site.