Comogli Carte Nautiche shows the rocks he hit (that's the charts), its the Italian version of NOAA, They have Simrad electronic chartplotters running, so theres no doubt where they were. At least 3 systems would have to have been overridden to get to where they were.
With a draft of 28ft , tide in or out wouldn't matter, they were hitting that rock.
Tripping and falling out of the Cruiser and landing in a lifeboat story?
After an abandon ship was declared, the coast guard commander in Livorno takes charge, Cruiser Captain was given a direct order, its in the published transcripts of the conversations, to reboard the cruiser and assist, get up the pilot ladder and reboard, return to his vessel and report how many passengers are left. He declined to re board the vessel and assist. THATS the abandon ship charge. Its 12 yrs in Italy.
The request for a course charge would have been sent through livornio and or Checeveccia (sp?) Coast Guard offices, they got no request. The "fly by" may have been done by others and approved by the cruise line, but this guy was on his own and got it very wrong. And people died.