I took some Queen Mary trans-Atlantic cruises a few years ago. On those cruises, there are a lot of people who are fascinated by cruising, and the co-captains hold information and discussion sessions. The QM2 is supposed to be very sturdy, and they were fond of saying that they doubted that the newer mega-cruise ships were sturdy enough for ocean travel. Another point that came up was cruisers' concerns that there is no common language that every employee must speak, so communication wouldn't be stellar in a real emergency. Yet another point was that these huge cruise ships can't be evacuated without deaths...they know that.
On that cruise, in the Med the ship got too close to Majorca, so we could wave at the people on the island. A fellow cruiser actually said..."My God, the ocean bottom is rocky here. Are they crazy?"
Summary....I wonder if they've learned anything from actually managing to have a disaster so close to shore.
No sense either way--showing off, ignoring crew reports of water until too late, or jumping off the ship to catch an early lifeboat. He's never captaining anything bigger than a rowboat after he gets out of the legal system.