[Red Badger]

Altruism?
That was not the point.
The point was there was an incompetent captain, and we were speculating that he may have gotten his position through ‘pull’ rather than ‘skill’................

[GonzoGOP]

Altruism? That was not the point.+

Being captain doesn't mean you have to go down with your ship. But it does mean that you stay aboard until the passengers are away. It does mean that you remain calm and take command. And it means that you put people who know their job on watch when you are at dinner. This captain did none of those things.

If you look at their actual course vs the course they took it isn't even close. They were on the wrong side of the island, a look out the dining room window would have told the captain that something was badly wrong. Then when the ship stuck they waited an hour before sending the passengers to the muster stations. Had they sent them immediately when the engine room started to flood they could have lowered the boats while the ship was still relatively level. In doing so they would have avoided the panic caused when many of the boats could not be launched.

It is only fortunate that so few lives were lost. And that was not planning, just dumb luck and hard work on the part of the locals, who are outnumbered by the ships passengers and crew almost ten to one.