Norwegian rescue now

It’s not easy plucking people off the deck of a rolling ship while being buffetted by wind gusts. Some one is earning their pilot pay today.

tiltrider1 said:

It’s not easy plucking people off the deck of a rolling ship while being buffetted by wind gusts. Some one is earning their pilot pay today.

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1300 winch lifts! All untrained, improperly clothed, most geriatric. Holy Heart Attack, Batman!

What the heck happened to the engines????

Looks like the ship is pretty far south. I'm surprised they could get a tug out of Bergen to tow it.

You'd think they'd have better luck lowering the parts required to fix the engine than winching up 1300 people.

Reports say the ship is quite new, built in 2017. Both engines failed, the crew got one working, and successfully anchored the ship, in nasty conditions. The Mayday and helicopter rescue sound precautionary,but maybe it is on a lee shore and maybe there are other uncertainties, like something bad happening in the ER and elsewhere causing engine failures. Wondering about the brand/type of anchor.

So...are cruise ship anchors sized for storm conditions in unprotected waters?

Not much margin for dragging when you can see the surf line in the video.

Also...hard to imagine why people just sit there while a 6' diameter thigh crushing planter slides back and forth, inches in front of them.

Only two engines?


I thought most cruise ships had a half dozen or more that ran generators that moved the ship and provided onboard electric.

BruceK said:

Wondering about the brand/type of anchor.

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I see what you're trying to do there

FF said:

Only two engines?

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The news reports I'm seeing now say four. I would have expected five or six, too. They eventually got three going. I assume electric propulsion. You'd think even one would keep them off the rocks, but I suspect there was a lot more going on than we know. We'll probably have to wait for a formal report.

I was wondering about the wisdom of pulling hundreds of people out by helicopter, at night, but when I saw how close they were to going aground, I guess it was the only option. They are very, very fortunate all went well with the helicopters.

Greetings,


Norway cruise ship rescue ends as vessel sails to port - live updates


Live Cam...

Some of the online video showed the ship, anchored,sitting nicely. I`d hazard furniture on the move etc was prior.
The story underlines is that anchors are not just a convenience item but full on safety equipment. Great news the boat has been towed to a safe harbour.
But, why did all the engines of a 2 year old fail simultaneously in heavy conditions?
3 years back an older Carnival ship (either Spirit or Legend, sister ships)had 3 days in the Pacific under power, not anchored,off the entrance to Sydney Harbour during an east coast low generating seas so large the Harbour was closed. With no known engine failure.

"But, why did all the engines of a 2 year old fail simultaneously in heavy conditions?"


My guess , a fuse blew somewhere.

Greetings,
Hmmm....Speculation at this point but a boat is a boat. Ask yourself, what is the predominant cause of engine failures on our vessels and an "argument" against the "benefits" twin engines? Fuel supply.
Might be contamination in the tank(s) was stirred up by the sea state...

As Mayday was called, I assume there will be an Inquiry to establish what happened. Let`s hope someone picks up the reporting and posts it.

4 Diesel engines/ generators powering 2 electric motors.
Speculation is that air got in the cooling system with automatic shutdown causing overload on the remaining engines with more shutdowns.
2 anchors held after dragging awhile, then the last engine/motor was used to take some of the load off the anchors.
They finally got 2 more engines/generators online as well as hawser onboard from an anchor handling supply ship used as a tug, then limped to the town of Molde escorted by several other tugs.
Helicopters overhead nineteen hours continuously evacuating four hundred and seventy nine pax.
It was close to being a major disaster..

A little more information here:

I am sure glad my DD 6-71N only needs electric to get started !!!!

Now the reason for engine failure is out:
Low oil pressure: The movement of the ship uncovered the lubrication oil pickup with auto shutdown as a result.
(Somebody forgot to top of the lube oil tanks perhaps and may be in trouble..)

Lube tanks were serviced to normal levels, but the ship was sent into seas that a shallow draft cruise ship should never have entered. These ships are nothing like the North Atlantic rated liners of old in terms of seaworthiness. Compare the windage and draft of your typical contemporary cruise ship with that of the Queen Mary or even the QE2........ and someone thought it was a good idea to send her into a “bomb cyclone”.

Post 20 above is a cause for concern. To meet a schedule, set even years ahead,cruise ships need to be able to operate in bad weather. If they are not designed and built to do that,this near disaster episode is an indication of the trouble that lies ahead.

LN-RTP said:

Now the reason for engine failure is out:
Low oil pressure: The movement of the ship uncovered the lubrication oil pickup with auto shutdown as a result.
(Somebody forgot to top of the lube oil tanks perhaps and may be in trouble..)

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Having seen the sea state and rolling, I had wondered if that might have been the source of the propulsion loss. It is analogous to the cause of the loss of the El Faro in 2015. The immediate cause of that sinking was the loss of propulsion from engine shut-down after the lube-oil pick-ups were exposed.

The proximate cause was of course the captain sailing the ship into the eye-wall of a hurricane...

There's an absolute heart-wrenching and gripping account of it by the excellent journalist (how often do you see those two words in close proximity these days?) William Langewiesche here:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/inside-el-faro-the-worst-us-maritime-disaster-in-decades

I'm sure it has been talked about and linked here before, and sorry for the digression, but the some parallels make it worth mentioning.

Hi,

A brief more detailed description of what happened to the engines failure...

https://shipinsight.com/articles/viking-sky-low-oil-pressure-to-blame-says-nma

NBs

Low oil is almost unbelieveible as weight is not a penalty in boats (unlike aircraft) so filling lube oil tanks would seem part of normal procedure.

“For the present, our conclusion is that the engine failure was directly caused by low oil pressure. The level of lubricating oil in the tanks was within set limits, however relatively low, when the vessel started to cross Hustadvika. The tanks were provided with level alarms, however these had not been triggered at this time. The heavy seas in Hustadvika probably caused movements in the tanks so large that the supply to the lubricating oil pumps stopped. This triggered an alarm indicating a low level of lubrication oil, which in turn shortly thereafter caused an automatic shutdown of the engines."


Seems perfectly believable.