I am a U.S. Navy veteran, retired newspaper reporter, freelance travel writer and a veteran of nearly 30 cruise ship voyages.  Today, you had a cruise consultant on the air talking about the Costa Concordia disaster.  When asked if the ship had any equipment that should have warned about rocks or shallow water, your guest failed to mention that all cruise ships – as well as large yachts, big fishing boats and all naval forces ships — have fathometers, a device that works by sonar and which tells the navigation bridge (and therefore captain) how much water is between the bottom of a ship’s hull and the bottom of the sea, bay, channel or river over which a ship is traversing.  Modern cruise ships also have GPS devices that help pinpoint a ship’s position.  In addition, all seagoing vessels must carry with them up-to-date charts and graphs that show the depth of waters they will be sailing.  The Concordia had just left the port of Citaveccia and was sailing northward on a course that hundreds of ships sail during any given year along the coast of Italy.  Sailing departures often are predicated on aquatic tides and currents, which are also known to navigation crews.  If the captain of the Concordia had been paying attention to all the navigation technology and publications available to him, this disaster would not have occurred.
Thank you
Preston Turegano (Too-ri-ga-no)
La Mesa, CA.