
Moss Hills – My Story of the Sinking (2013) - randycupertino
http://www.oceanossinking.com/index.php?page_id=15
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randycupertino
This story by Moss Hills about the Oceanos shipwreck is incredible. I can't
believe I've never heard about it before or that there hasn't been a big
blockbuster movie made about the wreck.

The ship MTS Oceanos had a crew of the most craven, selfish, cowardly Greeks
to have ever gone to sea. When the ship started sinking off the coast of South
Africa, the captain and crew all deserted the ship without even raising the
alarm to alert the passengers that the ship was sinking. They snuck off,
leaving the passengers in the dark to fend for themselves. They lowered a
half-full lifeboat as soon as all the crew and their luggage was on board,
despite people screaming at them not to.

Moss Hills was the guitarist in the resident entertainment team and after
checking the state of the ship (finding that the captain had lied in his
announcements) he went to the bridge and found it deserted. Here is the video
footage Moss took when he went down below deck to verify his suspicions that
the boat was indeed going down:
[https://youtu.be/9BFux2AAMso?t=57s](https://youtu.be/9BFux2AAMso?t=57s)

Hills tells how he contacted another ship on the radio:

"By radio, I spoke to Captain Detmar aboard the ship "Nedlloyd Mauritius" a
few times and the radio reception was clear. Captain Detmar was extremely calm
and efficient sounding and was very reassuring. At first he asked me a few
technical type questions and wanted to know our exact position, how many
people were still on board, our angle of lean and current strengths, etc. When
I was unable to answer he wanted to know my rank. I answered that I wasn't any
rank, I was a guitarist. After a short pause to digest this he came back on
and was extremely supportive. In fact, South African newspapers picked up this
story and ran a cartoon of me as a small figure on the bridge of a listing
ship in pounding seas, captioned with "Attention, attention, this is your lead
guitarist speaking". The artist sent me the original of it which I still
have."

He and some of his entertainment teammates organized getting the passengers
rescued from the heavily listing and sinking ship by helicopter. Hills was the
last man to be air lifted off the boat, minutes before the ship sank. Most
impressively, despite the captains best efforts to be utterly derelict of his
duties, not a single life was lost.

Moss Hills later also survived ANOTHER shipwreck a few years down the road.

------
chiph
Benji Smith, who used to hang out on the Joel-on-Software forum, was aboard
the Costa Concordia when it ran aground & sank. And later wrote a book about
the wreck:

[http://www.amazon.com/Abandoned-Ship-intimate-Concordia-
ship...](http://www.amazon.com/Abandoned-Ship-intimate-Concordia-shipwreck-
ebook/dp/B00AUYIKNK)

Similar events happened during the wreck - the crew lied to the passengers,
did not do their duty to ensure the safety of all souls on board, left the
ship early, and so on.

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DrScump
PBS Nova had an episode called "Why Ships Sink" that included the Oceanos
story.

Episode:

[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/why-ships-
sink.html](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/why-ships-sink.html)

(note the Transcript link, for text)

another clip:

[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/cruiseship-guitar-
hero.htm...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/cruiseship-guitar-hero.html)

------
XorNot
I really can't properly fathom what the hell was going on with the captain and
crew. Like, I know people have weird responses to high-stress situations, but
the actions of the captain and crew beggar belief.

