After the whale was dead, the sailors would then slowly and with great effort take it all the way back to the ship.

VOA: special.2011.06.29

When bad weather prevented navigators from seeing the sun,moon or stars, they had to use a method called "dead reckoning" to find the ship's position.

VOA: special.2009.12.23

If a ship was sailing in the middle of the ocean, a navigator could make mistakes using dead reckoning and no harm would be done.

VOA: special.2011.07.06

They looked as dead in the water as a cruise ship.

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"I, poor, miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwrecked, during a dreadful storm, in the offing, came on shore on this dismal, unfortunate island, which I called the Island of Despair, all the rest of the ship's company being drowned, and myself almost dead, " Crusoe writes in his first entry.

WSJ: Fiction as Authentic as Fact | Robinson Crusoe | Daniel Defoe | Masterpiece by Danny Heitman

The BBC's Alan Johnston in Rome says that whatever the cause of the crash, it has revived memories of the accident involving the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the Italian island of Giglio in January 2012, which left 32 people dead.

BBC: Italy deaths as Genoa ship hits control tower