This is interesting because some news reports from the time of the recorder recovery and NTSB release seem to assign more culpability to the Captain:

Doomed El Fargo Captain Ignored 3 Hurricane Warnings

El Faro captain partly responsible for ship's sinking: NTSB

Reading this article it seems like based on what the Captain had available the operator and regulator played a much more significant role than I got from the earlier articles. Kind of reminds me of Air NZ Flight 901 where they tried to pin the whole thing on the pilots the first time around.

Reading the main post, hell yes the captain is culpable.

Pressure from management is a theme in disaster investigations. It makes well-qualified, experienced captains take risks that they have a history of avoiding.

I find it hard to be judgemental of a captain that already endured a job loss and career reset in the name of safety.

Also, the state of weather reporting is ridiculous.

That's his job, to take responsibility. If some idiot spills oil over the side or kills a fisherman he goes to jail. If the company wants to risk everyone on board for a few bucks cause the ship is nearing the end of it's life and insured and if they scrapped it they'd have to pay out a fortune in redundo, he tells them to fuck off. That's literally his job, the mate does all the actual work on the bridge.

No-one else on board can do that, and all 33 of them died without a say in it because the old man ummed and arred for days hoping things would work out while steering directly into a storm.

As one of the other 33 on board a ship with my life in their hands I find the transcripts terrifyingly relatable. All they do up there is faff about trying to make the one true coffee.

Does the present system reward captains that behave as you suggest?

yup. as much as I upvoted eggboy, this is an issue.

when I make a mistake in my job and realize it, I go straight to my coworkers and my boss, tell them what happened, try to evaluate damages, try to fix my mistake and work hard to find ways to prevent future occurrences.

looks like shipping companies do not work the same way (at least at the time) and this would explain part of errors that were made here.

Jesus Christ, absolute fubbery

This was a very interesting read. My heart was racing at the end! Great post!