Capt. Francesco Schettino should never have picked a fight with Poseidon.
In an interview last year, Schettino referenced the Titanic and boasted about how he loved being challenged by the sea.
“I enjoy moments when something unpredictable happens — when you can diverge a bit from standard procedures,” Schettino told the Czech newspaper Dnes.
“It’s a challenge to face. I enjoy it.”
Schettino admits he would have been overwhelmed at the helm of the doomed Titanic. “I wouldn’t have liked to be in the role of the captain of the Titanic, having to sail in an ocean of icebergs,” he said.
Schettino — who comes from a family of navigators who call him a “great commander” — has a bad habit of running off course with his antics, co-workers say.
“He was too exuberant. He’s a braggart. More than once I had to put him in his place,” Mario Palombo, Schettino’s former captain, told La Repubblica newspaper.
Martino Pellegrino, an officer on the Costa Concordia, has already told investigators that Schettino ran the ship “with an inflexible authority . . . against which no one could make their voices heard,” the Times of London reported.
And other crew members complained that, last month, Schettino put the safety of the ship and its thousands of passengers at risk when he gave the order to depart the port of Marseilles, France, in the face of howling, 60-knot winds.
A married father of a 15-year-old daughter, Schettino, 52, was born to the seas in the Italian coast town of Castellammare di Stabia, near Naples. His mother, Rosa, is from a long line of ship owners.
His instructor at a merchant marine school told The Post that Schettino was “a careful student” who always put safety concerns first.
“I am very surprised that he didn’t stay on board. That is the first rule of being a captain,” the teacher said.
Schettino “loves the sea,” his sister Giulia told the Italian newspaper Il Mattino. “My brother is a responsible person. I can’t imagine he did what he’s accused of.”