For perspective, THIS PHOTO shows a cruise ship in the Med doing a roll somewhere in the 30 to 40 degree range.
HERE is the famous video of the mv Voyager. This was in a cyclone in the Med and the ship's engines had failed so they were dead in the water. They got some power back and made it into port.
I am amazed at how many incidents CCL has had this year.We all hear of cutbacks we see but not the cutbacks we don't. Could it be there were less people on the bridge than in years past or the people on the bridge are working longer hours?.With taking out parts of docks and hitting other ships turning around it makes me wonder.In reading the passenger comments from Dave's articale it seems gyroscope malfuntion was changed to rogue buoy.I know CCL likes to keep there cruise lines separate but Princess seems to operate with fewer incidents.
There rarely are many watchstanders on the bridge of any cruise ship. The reason is technology has eliminated the need. For example the largest cruise ship in the world - the Oasis Of The Seas - normally has two people on the bridge. It's all they need.
The Captain said they had to perform the sharp turn to avoid an undetected buoy. Why can't that be accepted as factual? Meanwhile we have a self-proclaimed navigational expert stirring the pot in his response to the news article, but oh, he was in the casino at the time they made the maneuver.
Without having more insight about this particular case than what I read from the media (and that can be quite confusing), a 12 degree list sounds reasonable - and serious enough.
When steaming at normal sea speed on a ship like the extacy, or any modern cruise ship, one should be very careful when changing course. The rudder angle should never exceed 5 degrees and one should keep a sharp eye on the rate of turn indicator (how fast the ship turns).
Passenger ships are sensitive to these kind of manouvers because of the relatively large distance between the centre of gravity and the metacentre (a point intercepted by a vertical line through the centre of bouyancy). When a force is affecting this, for example when a rudder angle increases rapidly, this force causes a list on the ship. Other ship types like tankers, are not that sensitve to these kind of forces as they are lower and wider.
Reading about this makes me remember a similar incident with the Norwegian Sky back in 2001, enroute to Seattle after an Alaska cruise. What happened then, was that the rudders all of a sudden went all the way to one side, causing a list of about 12-18 degrees before they managed to regain control over the ship. 12 degrees list sounds small, but it isn't. Standing on the bridge, one can easily feel when a ship is listing more than 0,5 degrees to either side.
I remember one of the videos RCI did when the Oasis came out. One of the officers said the Oasis had more stability than other cruise ships because it's metacentric height is 6 meters, which I take as meaning ships such as Ecstasy have a GM larger than the 6 meters mentioned.
Thanks, Svein. I've often been puzzled as to why some ships roll more than others. Under normal sea conditions the Fantasy class ships have always seemed more stable to me when making a turn than the bigger ships. I was afraid the Glory was going to tip all the way over.
Meanwhile we have a self-proclaimed navigational expert stirring the pot in his response to the news article, but oh, he was in the casino at the time they made the maneuver.
We had a Q&A with the captain on the Explorer. For that ship he said that a 1-2 % list has most passengers in their cabins, seasick.
49% and the ship would likely capsize.
Dave, that video of the ship at the mercy of the ocean was amazing. Something that huge been tossed around like a beach ball. I'm sure the crew were "balls to the wall" trying to get the engines back on line. You at least need a fighting chance and without engines, you're just a sitting duck.
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