I’ve previously written about the importance of creating a crisis-communications plan before crisis crashes your image. Over the past two weeks, the yachting industry has been talking a lot about how to respond in a crisis. It’s partly due to the actions of two companies, each impacted by the same situation. One handled it well, while the other didn’t. Here’s how their responses are vital lessons in crisis communications.
On August 19, a yacht by the name of Bayesian tragically sank in Sicily in a severe storm that witnesses believed was a tornado or waterspout. Security-camera footage widely circulated on social media that day caught the sudden onslaught of severe weather as well. Forecasters had predicted storms, but nothing potentially damaging. While 15 people among the guests and crew escaped, another seven were missing. (All seven were confirmed dead days later.) As you can imagine, the yacht’s management company, Camper & Nicholsons, received phone calls and emails that morning from media around the world seeking updates and commentary. I was among them. Within 15 minutes of me emailing its media team, I received a response from the chief marketing officer. He wrote, “We do not have any further updates on the incident,” but referred me to and cc-d the company’s media representative. Specifically, that person was Camper & Nicholsons’ crisis-communications manager.
I therefore called the representative, who, also within minutes, sent me a prepared statement. The statement confirmed the yacht encountered bad weather and sank, and that 15 people were safe. “Our priority is assisting with the ongoing search and providing all necessary support to the rescued passengers and crew,” it concluded. “More information will be provided as it becomes available.”
Four days after the sinking, search-and-rescue crews recovered the body of the last missing person. That same day, the crisis-communications manager automatically sent me another statement. In part, it thanked the emergency responders, public agencies, and nearby boat owners who all assisted in the search-and-rescue efforts. “Those on board were valued colleagues, friends, and clients,” it continued. “Our deepest sympathies are with their loved ones during this incredibly difficult time.
Our focus remains on fully cooperating with the authorities and offering
unwavering support to the families affected by this tragic loss.”
Just as Camper & Nicholsons received multiple media inquiries, the builder of the yacht, Perini Navi, apparently did, too. Speculation on social media and in some traditional media questioned whether the yacht’s tall mast was a culprit. (I didn’t, knowing that the yacht’s design and construction had been approved by international marine inspectors and regulators. Even if something had been modified over the years or was somehow not maintained, I further knew it would only be revealed once investigators released a full report, months from now.) Perini Navi’s CEO, Giovanni Costantino, gave interviews on August 21 and 22 to a few media outlets: Sky News television in the UK, the Corriere della Sera newspaper in Italy, and RAI television’s TG1 news program in Italy. In each, Costantino blamed the captain and crew.
The sinking, he tells Sky News, “was an event that could have been managed with an average level of attention.” He continues, “Why did no one go out to sea? Everyone knew about the storm.”
“Everything that was done reveals a very long summation of errors,” he tells Corriere della Sera. “The people should not have been in the cabins, the boat should not have been at anchor. And then why didn’t the crew know about the incoming storm?” He adds, “The passengers reported something absurd, that is, that the storm came unexpectedly, suddenly. It’s not true. It was all predictable. I have the weather charts here in front of me.”
Finally, in his televised interview with TG1, Costantino points to the deck plans of the yacht and asserts that the crew left a hatch open. He repeats his claim of improper “management of passenger safety” as well, saying, “all 20 would have been saved,”
The Italian and British investigators (the yacht flew the British flag) looking into the cause of the sinking have all said it is too early to draw any conclusions.
I’ll leave you to decide whose crisis communications you might wish to emulate and whose you might not.