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DISASTER WATCH : Captain Non- Courageous

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Call him Captain Non-Courageous.

The captain of the Greek cruise ship Oceanos, which sank off South Africa Sunday, demonstrated that he was neither an officer nor a gentleman by leaving passengers to the mercy of 24-foot waves and winds gusting to 88 miles per hour.

The ship was on the return leg of a Durban-Cape Town cruise when it hit trouble and began to sink in the Indian Ocean.

Tradition has it that when there are accidents at sea, women and children abandon a sinking ship first and the captain is the last person off. But rules of the sea and passenger safety apparently meant little to Capt. Yiannis Avranas and many of his senior officers, whose modus operandi seems to have been “Praise the sea, on shore remain.”

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Said Avranas: “When I order ‘Abandon ship,’ it doesn’t matter what time I leave. . . . If some people like to stay, they can stay.”

Rather than remain aboard to help direct rescue operations, crew members opted to be among the first to jump ship, taking the only two motorized lifeboats with them.

Nevertheless--while the captain was safely out of harm’s way--all of the more than 500 people remaining aboard were rescued by others. On board, the ship’s entertainers guided rescue vessels to the strickened ship and helped passengers to life ropes. The South African military and merchant vessels launched a dramatic rescue operation that used helicopters to lift 170 to safety and ships to pull about 400 from lifeboats. It was a brilliant performance.

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