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Displaying items by tag: Plea Bargain

#CostaConcordia - The Irish Times reports that five officers from the ill-fated Costa Concordia have received jail sentences as part of their plea bargains with the court.

Each received a sentence ranging from 18 months to two years and 10 months - but as all sentences under two years in Italy are suspended, none are likely to be imprisoned.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the cruise liner's captain Francesco Schettino is awaiting a decision on his legal team's second plea offer to avoid a lengthy and complicated trial over the shipwreck tragedy, in which 32 people lost their lives.

Schettino, like the others, is charged with multiple counts of manslaughter, and is also accused of causing the loss of his ship - which ran aground in shallow waters off the western Italian coast on 13 January 2012.

Published in Cruise Liners

About Quarter Tonners

The Quarter Ton Class is a sailing class of the International Offshore Rule racing the Quarter Ton Cup between 1967 and 1996 and from 2005 until today.

The class is sailed by smaller keelboats of similar size and is likely the world's most-produced keelboat class.

The Ton, Half, Quarter, etc. 'classes' were each given a 'length' and yacht designers had almost free rein to work the hull shapes and measurements to achieve the best speed for that nominal length.

The Ton Rules produced cranky and tender boats without actual downwind speed. Measurement points created weird, almost square hull shapes with longish overhangs.

They were challenging to sail optimally and lost value very quickly as any new wrinkle (e.g. 'bustles') to take advantage of the rule made older boats very quickly uncompetitive.

Although its heyday was 30 years ago, the boat class continues to make its presence felt by holding its own in terms of popularity against some fern race fleets.