I've been wondering why the engines failed after the initial collision. Some insight is provided from The Old Salt's Blog:

"The ship blacked-out after the grounding. Was this cause or effect? The Costa Concordia is a diesel-electric powered ship which means that a loss of the electrical system also means a loss of engines and steering. This could have caused the ship to go off course and hit the rocks. Earlier this year, Cunard's Queen Mary 2, also a diesel electric ship, suffered a black-out due to a failure in the capacitors in the harmonic filters. Thus far, however, we have heard no such reports from the Costa Concordia. The black-out could have been the result of the grounding rather than contributing to it. Pending a further investigation, no one knows."

Clearly at some point back-up generators kicked in, enough to power the ship's bow thrusters and enable her to swing full around and then drift into shore and become hard aground, while repowering the lights.

Charley Noble

Charley Noble