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Norwegian Cruise Ship Mayday Call


Alan de Enfield

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Cruise liner with 1,300 passengers calls MAY DAY as it drifts towards Norwegian coastline in heavy winds

  • Viking Sky suffered engine failure and rescue helicopters are evacuating people
  • Passengers have been airlifted to a village near Molde on Norway's west coast
  • Wind was blowing at a speed of 38 knots at the time of the incident 

A cruise ship with 1,300 passengers on board has sent out a mayday call after suffering engine failure in heavy winds near Norway.  

The ship, named Viking Sky, was drifting towards land when it broadcast the distress signal.

Helicopters have been evacuating people from the vessel amid high waves and strong winds. 

It was later able to restart one engine, was anchored just over a mile from land and is no longer adrift.

 

A cargo ship which came to help rescue Viking Sky's passengers has also issued a mayday call due to engine failure, it has been reported.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6842479/Cruise-liner-1-300-passengers-calls-DAY-drifts-land.html

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7 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

It seems strange that the boat that went to rescue them also suffered from engine failure and had to issue a Mayday of his own.

 

(Maybe they both hadn't given the fuel tanks a seeing-to before heading out onto the lumpy-stuff) 

 

My first thought was that their propellors might have become entangled with something like an abandoned fishing net.

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1 minute ago, cuthound said:

 

My first thought was that their propellors might have become entangled with something like an abandoned fishing net.

I must admit my 1st thoughts were lobster pots but I don't know if these big ships are equipped with rope-cutters on their props.

It certainly seems an odd coincidence.

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3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I must admit my 1st thoughts were lobster pots but I don't know if these big ships are equipped with rope-cutters on their props.

It certainly seems an odd coincidence.

 

My narrow boat is fitted with a "Prop Protector". I was sceptical at first, but after 5 years and doing a fair bit of cruising in the BCN the only thing that it hasn't coped with was someones discarded cratch cover.

Edited by cuthound
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3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

It certainly seems an odd coincidence.

 

 

Brumunddal Triangle It makes people disappear 
Brumunddal Triangle Don't go too near 
But she Doesn't see my angle 
And she thinks I'm being dumb 
So Brumunddal Triangle 
Here we come!

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Just seen this on the news. The lifeboats turned around due to rough seas!

 

30ft plus waves. The cruise ship is being tossed around somewhat at anchor.

 

They are still air lifting passengers off the ship but did report that the ship may try to makes it's way to harbour today if the weather improves. 

 

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blimey ... 38 knots of wind!!    just a 'fresh gale'  

 

is this one of those ridiculously shallow draft passenger vessels that seem to be fashionable these days - unable to avoid rolling like a pig if the stabilisers aren't working - which of course are ineffective if the ship is not making reasonable headway.

 

 

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Just a thought. It has taken many hours so far, and yet less than half the passengers and crew have been evacuated so far. Heaven forbid, but what if the emergency had been an engine breakdown leading  to a fire? Remember that this vessel is one of the smaller ones. In my view it doesn't bear thinking about.

 

Howard

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47 minutes ago, howardang said:

Just a thought. It has taken many hours so far, and yet less than half the passengers and crew have been evacuated so far. Heaven forbid, but what if the emergency had been an engine breakdown leading  to a fire? Remember that this vessel is one of the smaller ones. In my view it doesn't bear thinking about.

 

Howard

err .... they have lifeboats.  :banghead:

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48 minutes ago, howardang said:

Just a thought. It has taken many hours so far, and yet less than half the passengers and crew have been evacuated so far. Heaven forbid, but what if the emergency had been an engine breakdown leading  to a fire? Remember that this vessel is one of the smaller ones. In my view it doesn't bear thinking about.

 

Howard

They would have taken to the lifeboats, not waited for helicopter shuttle off of the cruise ship.

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2 minutes ago, Paul C said:

They would have taken to the lifeboats, not waited for helicopter shuttle off of the cruise ship.

I am fully aware about lifeboats but have any of you actually thought about the practicalities of launching lifeboats in that sort of weather? Because the engines were out of action, coupled with her being anchored, which tends to keep her head to wind,  the ship was not able to make a lee to give shelter to its lifeboats, which would have been potentially subject to damage during the operation, and with great respect to a large proportion of the crew, who I am sure are doing their best, their basic seamanship will be rudimentary , and I would suggest that they would find it a very difficult operation to carry out safely with the numbers of people involved (and please remember that in cruise ship terms this is a smaller vessel).  Please bear in mind that inevitable a large number of the passengers are past the first flush of youth - some quite elderly - which is the norm on this type of ship, and in those  sea conditions, launching ships lifeboats would be very slow and too hazardous to consider. That is, I suspect, one of the reasons why the decision was made to use the helicopter option. In that regard it is fortunate that the vessel is withing the range of such helicopter services.

 

I am only glad that at last they seem to have got underway and are proceeding, slowly, to Molde. Let's just hope they get there safely and as soon as possible. 

 

Howard

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4 minutes ago, howardang said:

...........and please remember that in cruise ship terms this is a smaller vessel

 

Indeed it is.

SWMBO, her mother & a friend went on one of the 'big-ships'. It had 6000 passengers and 3,000 crew..

 

It would take "some time" to lift 9,000 people off by chopper.

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40 minutes ago, howardang said:

I am fully aware about lifeboats but have any of you actually thought about the practicalities of launching lifeboats in that sort of weather? Because the engines were out of action, coupled with her being anchored, which tends to keep her head to wind,  the ship was not able to make a lee to give shelter to its lifeboats, which would have been potentially subject to damage during the operation, and with great respect to a large proportion of the crew, who I am sure are doing their best, their basic seamanship will be rudimentary , and I would suggest that they would find it a very difficult operation to carry out safely with the numbers of people involved (and please remember that in cruise ship terms this is a smaller vessel).  Please bear in mind that inevitable a large number of the passengers are past the first flush of youth - some quite elderly - which is the norm on this type of ship, and in those  sea conditions, launching ships lifeboats would be very slow and too hazardous to consider. That is, I suspect, one of the reasons why the decision was made to use the helicopter option. In that regard it is fortunate that the vessel is withing the range of such helicopter services.

 

I am only glad that at last they seem to have got underway and are proceeding, slowly, to Molde. Let's just hope they get there safely and as soon as possible. 

 

Howard

Of course, you balance the risk of evacuation against the risk of staying. What you seem keen to do, is to offer a judgement on a situation from your armchair. The captain of the stricken ship decided that helicopter evacuation in a slow, orderly way is appropriate. 

 

If it were on fire I suspect he would make a different decision - but I don't know.

 

I am not interested in second-guessing the decisions of a captain of a ship in an ongoing emergency; or speculating on vague "what if" scenarios (not all fires are the same; and there is the ability to fight a fire onboard a ship, they have equipment to do so and/or salvors can often bring it onboard).

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51 minutes ago, Paul C said:

Of course, you balance the risk of evacuation against the risk of staying. What you seem keen to do, is to offer a judgement on a situation from your armchair. The captain of the stricken ship decided that helicopter evacuation in a slow, orderly way is appropriate. 

 

If it were on fire I suspect he would make a different decision - but I don't know.

 

I am not interested in second-guessing the decisions of a captain of a ship in an ongoing emergency; or speculating on vague "what if" scenarios (not all fires are the same; and there is the ability to fight a fire onboard a ship, they have equipment to do so and/or salvors can often bring it onboard).

Yes, and anyway the decision is not binary. One can choose to evacuate the more vulnerable (elderly, disabled, children etc) by helicopter whilst time is not that pressing, but if things turn to ratshit then decide to evacuate the remaining people into lifeboats. As you say, it is all about taking the least dangerous path.

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If it had happened about 75 years ago Bismarck could have been sent to the rescue, it was hiding in a Fiord near there.   Those ships are all windage, nasty in my opinion,  like  SUV's of the seas, bunging up all the ports and hogging parking places.  They rely on engines and side thrusters to keep em safe.

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1 hour ago, Paul C said:

Of course, you balance the risk of evacuation against the risk of staying. What you seem keen to do, is to offer a judgement on a situation from your armchair. The captain of the stricken ship decided that helicopter evacuation in a slow, orderly way is appropriate. 

 

If it were on fire I suspect he would make a different decision - but I don't know.

 

I am not interested in second-guessing the decisions of a captain of a ship in an ongoing emergency; or speculating on vague "what if" scenarios (not all fires are the same; and there is the ability to fight a fire onboard a ship, they have equipment to do so and/or salvors can often bring it onboard).

I am very glad that I am sitting in my armchair but as happens on a discussion forum, you have expressed your views and so have I. Just for the record, the last thing I am doing is second guessing the Master's decision, or indeed the local emergency services. I am totally sympathetic to all the efforts taking place at the moment, and wish them every success.  I was actually trying to point out that the comment that "they could have taken to the lifeboats" made by a couple of people on this thread is actually not as easy as it sounds  and is  often fraught with problems in bad weather,  especially so  in a fire scenario,  which makes speed of evacuation  to be of the essence. Yes, of course  I do know that ships have a fire fighting capability, but there is a limit to what they can do in a major fire scenario,  and trying to fight a fire with a thousand or sometimes many more passengers to look after, not to mention many hundreds of crew and then to possibly to evacuate is a situation which is not always as easy to resolve as you seem to think and sometimes doesn't bear thinking about. Consider, too, if an incident - engine breakdown, fire etc - happens in a more remote location, out of the range of local rescue services. with no outside help. 

 

However, you have your view and I have mine, and we are both entitled to express them, but if nothing else, please understand that I am not, and never will, criticising any member of the crew who, as I said in my post, "and with great respect to a large proportion of the crew, who I am sure are doing their best," are, I am sure, doing their job  to the best of their abilities in very difficult conditions and I am hopeful that the situation will be resolved during the day with no injury or worse.

 

As an aside, something which I thought might interest those who read this. You refer to salvors; I read on another web site this morning which was discussing this subject, that tugs and oil rig supply vessels were standing by to assist,  and they were described as "vultures" - a comment which I thought was disgusting and showed total ignorance about what goes off in scenarios such as this.

 

Finally, this vessel is now being resurrected. Heaven forbid it never gets built!

 

https://keepcruisingworld.com/2019/03/freedom-ship-a-mile-long-vessel-with-60-000-passengers-onboard.html/

 

 

Howard

Edited by howardang
Insert URL for possible new ship!
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At £4,000 a go just go and look at the northern lights!!   At that price I'd have been quite content to go and see the Southend lights, ''half hour on the bus from Tilbury'', or even Blackpool's lights.

   The bus ride from Tilbury to Southend-On-Sea is quite a splendid trip, which includes stops at the wonderful Basildon, the delights of Pitsea, Pints of Fosters at the Tar Pots in Benfleet, Taking in the sea air and mud and gorging on cockles at Leigh-On -Sea, Chalkwell with its almost tropical sandy beaches and mud,  Westcliff with its towering cliffs with flats and hotels mounted atop, and then Sunny Southend, gateway to the east, with its golden sands and mud, balmy sea air, fish'n'chips, Strolls along the pier, fun fairs with'' Knock the lady out of bed''. and ''What the butler saw machines'', toffe apples and Candy Floss and of course more Lager, and last but not least not forgetting those spectacular and most splendid illuminations, ''The Lights'' when it gets dark. All for a paltry few quid. And you won't get shipwrecked.

Edited by bizzard
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What concerned me was the pictures of bits of the ceiling falling down on passengers. Sure the ship was rolling about but it was on built in 2017. It has 4 engines and they all failed what on earth could have happened.

As an aside I went to look at a tanker that the company was considering chartering. After a good look round I was concerned about the crew mix. The captain was Russian, the mate Indian, the chief engineer Singapore Chinese. The crew mixture Philpinos and assorted east europeans I asked the captain what common language they would use in an emergency ne said get in lifeboat and F off. We declined to charter it.

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4 minutes ago, Dav and Pen said:

What concerned me was the pictures of bits of the ceiling falling down on passengers. Sure the ship was rolling about but it was on built in 2017. It has 4 engines and they all failed what on earth could have happened.

As an aside I went to look at a tanker that the company was considering chartering. After a good look round I was concerned about the crew mix. The captain was Russian, the mate Indian, the chief engineer Singapore Chinese. The crew mixture Philpinos and assorted east europeans I asked the captain what common language they would use in an emergency ne said get in lifeboat and F off. We declined to charter it.

Probably Diesel electric and just a blown fuse of which they forgot to buy spares from Wilco's.

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