There is video included as well. Looks to be a difficult situation.

A cruise ship off Norway's western coast was evacuating its 1,300 passengers after losing power and issuing a mayday call on Saturday.

Helicopters and boats were helping with the evacuation, which is expected to continue for many hours, The Associated Press reported.

The Viking Sky, operated by Viking Ocean Cruises, was experiencing engine problems, the Norwegian newspaper VG reported. At the time, the cruise ship was also encountering high seas and strong winds, the newspaper said.

The ship is in Hustadvika bay, an area that, as Reuters reported, is known "for fierce weather" and "shallow waters dotted with reefs."

The Norwegian government is studying whether to "build a giant ocean tunnel through a nearby mountain to improve safety" in the bay, according to the news agency.

LINK: https://www.npr.org/2019/03/23...f-norways-west-coast

Yup, and this sailor will continue to say hell no to any ocean going cruises. I'd never bring my family on one of those ships full of thousands of inexperienced, blissfully ignorant souls.

I was waiting for your comment. Can you elaborate further? Is it the skimping on safety measures, the crew, the ignorant passengers or all of the above?

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Yup, and this sailor will continue to say hell no to any ocean going cruises. I'd never bring my family on one of those ships full of thousands of inexperienced, blissfully ignorant souls.

I have also said the same exact comment to my family and friends. 24 Years of coming alongside of the distressed vessels in the Med and Caribbean Sea makes me say "no way".

Chalk it up to my own paranoia from knowing just how wrong things can go on a ship out at sea. I'd probably never be abe to enjoy myself thinkng constantly about it.

To answer your question directly though, it's mostly the other passengers. I'm sure the crew is trained and know what to do, but a majority of those thousands of passengers certainly don't. We train constantly on the ship for all manner of emergencies, and we still get it wrong. I just have no desire to be onboard one of those things when things go very wrong, and it will again. It's inevitable. If this ship for instance had been further out to sea when they lost power in those rough seas or in worse weather, they'd be in a much more dire situation.

But again, that's my own paranoia if you want to call it that. After all, countless people take cruises every year and seem to enjoy them. For me and for my family, the risk just isn't worth it.

Ok thanks Alan.

If you think that about cruise ships, what do you think about airliners?

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
Yup, and this sailor will continue to say hell no to any ocean going cruises. I'd never bring my family on one of those ships full of thousands of inexperienced, blissfully ignorant souls.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
If you think that about cruise ships, what do you think about airliners?

[

What about them? Airplanes are necessary for travel. I certainly wouldn't spend days on one with thousands of other folks purely for drinking and partying and a nice view.

This is not the first time one of Viking's three year old Italian built small cruise ships has had a problem. The Viking Sea had engine problems twice in its first year of operation.

The Viking Star is the lead ship of the three. No engine problems found, but clipped a rairoad bridge over the Cape Cod Canal in 2016 with minor damage.

My brother and his wife were on the Viking Star's maiden voyage. These ships only have 930 passengers and the passenger:staff ratio is less than 2:1. Not cheap and they had a fantastic time unlike an experience on one of those super ships which has 2000 more passengers than my town's population of 3200.

I realize this is an extremely naïve question, but what?—No redundancy for keeping things going if something fails?
Don’t bother answering if the question is too stupid to address, but even most commercial passenger aircraft have more than one engine.

Some more reading reveals they managed to get one engine going to get away from the reefs and shoals and then they anchored for the evacuation.

Also found this on Wiki:

The vessel is fitted with energy-efficient hybrid engines, and onboard solar panels and exhaust pollution-minimising equipment to enable her to meet strict environmental regulations. Her COMPAC propeller shaft bearings, manufactured by Thordon Bearings, are lubricated by seawater, which is recycled into the ocean. The use of seawater as a lubricant lowers in-service maintenance costs, by eliminating the requirement for an aft seal. The seawater lubricant also replaces expensive biodegradable oils, which, if used, would need to be stored, sampled and disposed of, and would also create a risk of accidental oil discharge.

Sounds like a green warrior's and engineer's wet dream but might not have been ready for prime time and risking all those souls.

I thought that you were talking about the ships as being unsafe from a purely vehicular standpoint. I guess I was wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
If you think that about cruise ships, what do you think about airliners?

[

What about them? Airplanes are necessary for travel. I certainly wouldn't spend days on one with thousands of other folks purely for drinking and partying and a nice view.

Hoist operations are stressful, out of ground effect hover, gusty winds and multiple hoists. I am sure the helicopter has computer assist, but it is still stressful. Crew coordination at its peak, I bet those guys doing the flying and hoisting are exhausted.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
I realize this is an extremely naïve question, but what?—No redundancy for keeping things going if something fails?
Don’t bother answering if the question is too stupid to address, but even most commercial passenger aircraft have more than one engine.

It's not a stupid question. These ships usually have a good bit of redundancy, but nothing is 100% fool proof. I do not know what kind of propulsion and power plant is on this ship, but most modern crew ships are diesel electric with two independent engine rooms. The main engines are actually electric motors run off of diesel powered generators. So lose power and you lose propulsion. But that can be true of traditional diesel propulsion ships as well as auxiliary equipment for the main engines require electricity. Emergency generators typically only supply a minimal amount of power for certain vital equipment.

The cruise ship that got stranded in the gulf of Mexico off of the Yucatan a few years back was due to a fire that melted the wiring that, simply said, connected the two engine rooms which knocked both engine rooms out. It was a flaw in the redundancy design.

Large commercial ships do typically only have one main engine by the way. That's not typical of cruise ships though. I don't know the make up of this one.

quote:

Originally posted by BBMW:
I thought that you were talking about the ships as being unsafe from a purely vehicular standpoint. I guess I was wrong.

No, I wouldn't call the ship unsafe. It's the mass of unawares onboard that make it dangerous.
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it. Agent K

And even an unsinkable ship like the Titanic is sinkable.

I’ve been aboard two ships that had fires, and several that have lost power, multiple times. Nothing is perfect. Simply having an engineer close a wrong valve while trying to change a Fuel filter will cause a shut down...

No way I’d get on a boat that had several different crew members who didn’t all speak the same language, and practice, practice, practice for emergencies. I’ve seen what a prepared crew does when shits on fire and everything is going wrong....

Nope, not me.

I believe that it takes a well trained crew to maintain the seaworthiness of a vessel at sea.
Naval personnel spend every day, every hour, performing maintenance and ensuring the proper functioning of pumps, generators, valves and machinery.
Does anyone really believe that a cruise liner spends the same time and detail as the US Navy? Even the Russians, (Soviets) did NOT have the same meticulous attention to detail and the PMS (Preventative Maintenance System, is a real navy term).
A ship at sea, especially an aircraft carrier, has multiple fires daily. The trained crew reacts quickly to extinguish these fires. On a cruise liner, the crew probably (I have no real facts) heads topside to get fresh air.
US Navy trains and trains some more until the entire crew knows how to put out a fire or stop flooding.
Knowing the great expense the Navy puts toward operations, how could I ever trust to put my family and my friends lives in that type of risk?

Fires, floods and mechanical failure is a constant on a ship. On a cruise liner, that all happens away from the passenger decks.

Aircraft, not the same... no, they don't have the same lackadaisical attitude toward maintenance.

If she is ready, I will be sailing on that ship in two weeks.

No, I am not concerned about her being seaworthy. I have spent four years in the US Navy, have spent time on smaller ships in the North Atlantic in the winter. Kind of miss seeing waves coming over the bow. Probably won’t see them on this trip.

The Viking river ships do have diesel/electric propulsion systems. Not sure what the ocean going ships use. I’ll tell you when I return.

Looking forward to the trip - Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany and Holland.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by djinco:

“A ship at sea, especially an aircraft carrier, has multiple fires daily.

Fires, floods and mechanical failure is a constant on a ship.”

Really? Daily? Constant? Having spent three years on several Navy ships no, these things were NOT frequent by any means, exceptionally rare is a better description.

I've taken the family out twice on Disney Cruise line ships, and we are planning a 3rd. I didn't think I would enjoy it, but I had a great time on both cruises.
I wouldn't cruise on a Carnival line ship (I have a lot of friends in the USCG and ABS and have heard numerous horror stories), and I wouldn't take a cruise to Antarctica. The Southern Ocean is really no place for amateurs/civilians to be honest
I ran one of the US flagged Antarctic research icebreakers and currently am master on a Navy Fleet tug (T-ATF) designed to tow carriers and battleships.
This Viking Sky rescue is taking place in 20'+ seas, very difficult conditions to take a ship under tow.
Not to contradict Balze, but I'd much rather have 100 miles of sea room to drift and try to get the plant operational, than have to rely on the anchor to keep me from breaking up on a lee shore. It's really a nightmare to be on a ship getting pounded against the rocks in heavy breaking surf.Really a worst case scenario. These ships are large enough, that unless stability is compromised, you are in no danger wallowing around mid-ocean, unless you consider sea-sickness fatal.

quote:

and I wouldn't take a cruise to Antarctica.

Slight thread drift: Just got home from one on Le Lyrial, a French ship of the Ponant line. Boarded in Ushuaia (southern Argentina) and cruised to the Antarctic Peninsula. It was not a large ship, about 200 pax and 140 crew, went to shore on Zodiacs 11 times. No high seas, no engine problems, no hoisting up to rescue helicopters. We had a blast.

https://www.tauck.com/tours/antarctica-cruise