Hurricanes and Ships

[jan7487]

Can anyone shed some light on what influence significant Caribbean hurricanes have on that ship's course? What would happen if, upon exiting the Panama Canal, a major storm was in the area.

Does the ship just " plow on", wait it out, try to go around or ??????????? Can ships safely make their way through a major storm????

I haven't a clue and will be transiting the canal in early October. Though a loyal HA passenger with more than 200 days, must admit I have never given these issues a thought.

Would (hopefully!) be relieved to hear from experts who understand these issues. Many thanks for any comments.

[JimVrhovac]

They will not sail into a storm. They will rearrange the itenerary to give everyone a nice cruise.

Best way to tell if heading into bad weather is when the bar staff start to install the seatbelts on the bar stools....

Ruth & Jim

[madelinerose]

Best way to tell if heading into bad weather is when the bar staff start to install the seatbelts on the bar stools....




:D :D :D :eek:

[hammybee]

What would happen if, upon exiting the Panama Canal, a major storm was in the area?

They put her into reverse.:D

[hammybee]

Actually, the Panama Canal is a good "what if " scenario. I will speculate a response.

Very few ships do a full canal transit other than a seasonal repositioning. If there was reasonable certainty that the ship would be positioned in the line of a hurricane, upon exiting the canal, I think the Captain would suspend entering the canal or layover within one of the lakes within the canal, until he could safely exit the canal.

Safety of passengers, crew and the ship is the number one goal of the captain. I would not hesitate to sail in hurricane season out of fear of personal safety. Cruises at this time of year however, are far more prone to skipping ports,reducing port time and arriving at their destination port later than expected, due to rerouting.

[jan7487]

They put her into reverse.:D

Okay, that would be fine with me. After I get my bar stool belt fastened ( I always wondered what those straps were for) and feel that we are in full reverse back into the locks, guess I'll order a glass of wine and stop worrying.

[bepsf]

Actually, the Panama Canal is a good "what if " scenario. I will speculate a response.

Very few ships do a full canal transit other than a seasonal repositioning. If there was reasonable certainty that the ship would be positioned in the line of a hurricane, upon exiting the canal, I think the Captain would suspend entering the canal or layover within one of the lakes within the canal, until he could safely exit the canal.

Safety of passengers, crew and the ship is the number one goal of the captain. I would not hesitate to sail in hurricane season out of fear of personal safety. Cruises at this time of year however, are far more prone to skipping ports,reducing port time and arriving at their destination port later than expected, due to rerouting.


Hammy--

I don't think large ships are even allowed to enter the locks if a large storm is headed that way.

The channels and Lake Gatun are much too narrow for large ships to be tossed around in and with storms of that nature mudslides into the canal are a probability - either occurances could entrap a ship in the canal or inflict major damage from hitting bottom.

Worst case scenario: Ships would be forced to ride it out on the Pacific side and wait for the channels to be dredged again.

[prescottbob]

Ahoy!

I don't mind an occassional rough sea day ot two but this one's abit 'overboard', as it were. An oldie :

http://youtube.com/watch?v=h12-msb8LZw&mode=related&search=

May all your cruises be on calmer seas.

Bon Voyage and Good Health!
Bob:)

[Lynne Myrna]

After viewing that....I need Bonnine:(

[WeLoveCruising]

There's an informative feature Q&A article on Cruise Critic about sailing in hurricane season:

Here's the link:
http://www.cruisecritic.com/features/articles.cfm?ID=211

[diveoz]

After viewing that....I need Bonnine:(

My DW would be very upset and sick (both) by that! To me it looks like a good roller coaster - only problem is there is no "chicken door!"

[RedmondCruiser]

The lines will dodge hurricanes and utilize alternate ports. We have done the fall repositioning PC cruise several times and there has always been a hurricane to contend with. We missed hurricane Kenna (cat 4) by one day. Arriving in Puerto Vallarta the town was shut down and the end of the pier was missing, but the WalMart was open.

They do a good job. On one cruise they predicted that two storms would hit Cabo on the day we were to arrive. I told everyone that we would probably miss Cabo. Woke up the next morning and we were in Cabo and it was a beautiful sunny day. --- They must know what they are doing.

With hurricanes moving at 8 to 10 MPH a ship can get out of the way. The only thing that makes me worry is Felix was running along at 20 MPH and a 1930's hurricane went up the east coast at over 30 MPH. The faster they move the harder they are to dodge.

The only thing that bothers me is what if your arriving in port and a hurricane to arrive later that day. My TA had that happen when she got off the Norway just ahead of hurricane Andrew. I think that I would try to book for another week and stay on the ship.

[bepsf]

The only thing that bothers me is what if your arriving in port and a hurricane to arrive later that day. My TA had that happen when she got off the Norway just ahead of hurricane Andrew. I think that I would try to book for another week and stay on the ship.

2-3 years ago, HAL and other lines who had ships in the Caribbean had just such a thing happen.

HAL held Zuiderdam out at sea cruising around Cuba for an extra day or so until the storm had safely passed Florida - this of course delayed the departure of the following cruise. Pax were notified, HAL posted notices on its website, airlines rebooked pax at no additional costs, etc.

It was shortly thereafter when HAL rescheduled Zuiderdam to Alaska for the following summer seasons and no longer positioned a ship in the Caribbean year-round.

[RedmondCruiser]

In the early 90's they had the "storm of the century" that started in the Gulf and went up the east coast. That season the Niew Amsterdam was sailing out of Tampa and had to delay arrival for a day. The problem was that it got caught up in the storm. The bar tender in the crows nest told me that people were sleeping in the show room since it was in the center of the ship. He also said that he had a great group of people in the crows nest. Every time the wave spray reached the crows nest windows they all cheered and ordered more drinks.

[JimVrhovac]

We were on the Big Red Boat years ago with 600 kids on the ship and we hit a bad storm as we were coming into Cape Canavral, FLorida

They pointed it into the wind and we rode the storm out for 10 hours with 600 screaming kids and adults that acted like children.

Got the biggest kick out of one man who was upset because they would not let his chartered helicopter come and pick hi up from the ship now....

We can sit back and laugh about it now but it was not funny then....

Ruth & Jim

[leoandhugh]

Cruise ships never go into a major storm like a hurricane; they change course and itinerary, if necessary, to avoid them. And as to the Panama Canal, I do not think a hurricane has ever gotten that far south; their steering currents move them in a northwesterly direction in the Caribbean. A storm would have to go southwest to near the Panama Canal. That is one place that they would not change course because it would mean giving up their "slot" which may have been assigned weeks or even months in advance, and is not easily rescheduled. Same avoidance applies to typhoons in the Pacific. That "slot" in the Panama Canal scheduling is so important that, if a hurricane in the Caribbean would interfere, the ship would go so far as to miss a couple of ports to bypass the hurricane and make that schedule.:)

[bepsf]

The bar tender in the crows nest told me that people were sleeping in the show room since it was in the center of the ship. He also said that he had a great group of people in the crows nest. Every time the wave spray reached the crows nest windows they all cheered and ordered more drinks.

Now that's my kind of cruise!
:D

[zackiedawg]

As others have mentioned, a cruise ship will certainly attempt to avoid a hurricane while passengers are on board. And usually, they do this quite well - even if it means staying out at sea longer, running past the cruise's original termination day, or heading to other ports.

On the rare occasion that a ship is 'trapped' - at port with no easy way out without weathering bad seas - they may opt to deboard all passengers at port, assuming a hotel or land-based facility could be found to accomodate them, then run the ship out to sea to ride out the hurricane with essential crew only. Cruise ships can handle hurricanes out to sea - as long as they maintain their engine power. The ride may not be fun, but they can do it.

A rare incident during Hurricane Mitch in the late 90s was the Windjammer cruise ship Fantome - it was in exactly the situation you mentioned - it had stopped in Honduras, while hurricane Mitch hemmed it in. They decided to put all passengers on land, and sent the boat out with crew only to skirt just under Mitch, which was moving westward just north of Roatan as a very strong Cat 5 storm. Unfortunately, Mitch stopped, then jogged south, and sent its eyewall directly over the Fantome...which was predicted to have faced 170+ MPH winds and seas that could have been well over 50 feet. The Fantome was lost at sea with her entire crew, and noone knows exactly what happened in her final moments.

In 2004, the HAL Rotterdam was caught by a freakishly northern hurricane called Karl, east of Nova Scotia. It was a minimal Cat 1 storm...but was generating 40-50 foot waves and winds over 80MPH. Rotterdam lost her engines and all power during the storm, so she couldn't keep her bow into the waves - and the passengers got quite a bang-up ride. Lots of damage inside the ship - but her hull was fine and she finally restarted power after 6 hours and managed to get to Nova Scotia - with only a few injured passengers. Here you can see what the inside of the ship looked like - my mother and stepfather were onboard and I posted these pics here back in 2004:

http://pic1.piczo.com/zackiedawg/?b=191115&c=177495&p=start&cr=1

I wouldn't worry. Out of thousands of cruises a year, only one or two ships end up having to skirt through a storm without being able to get out of the way or deboard passengers - and all of them made it through fine. The wild rides I've had aboard a few cruises have become my favorite stories to tell!

[rjbean4]

Seeing the video on YouTube involving the Voyager brought back memories of when mom & I were on the Rotterdam 2004 fall trans atlantic. We sat dead in the water for 3 hours from the rough seas from Hurricane Karl. That one was only a threat to shipping. Well we were shipping trying to come across the Atlantic. We were trying to go around it but still got us. The rough seas caused clogged lubricating oil filters on ALL engines. Took 2 hours to get one back on line and another (3rd hour) to get the 2nd one we needed for propulsion. 4 days at sea turned into 6 as our stop at St. John's, Newfoundland was canceled. There was a million in cosmetic damage to the ship. Mom rode it out in our suite as we were upgraded and watched the glass top table flip over but didn't break. I rode it out in the Crows Nest. There was a older gentleman that had come up after we stopped and had ordered a Crown Royal on the rocks. After we took one of our BIG rolls from the heavy seas and more bottles and glasses fel and broke he said "hope that wasn't my bottle of Crown Royal" Wasn't funny then but we can laugh about it now.

At a later date I found the archives for hurricanes at the NOAA website and looked up Karl. As it turned out we were mentioned as a part of the report because the Rotterdam recorded the highest sustained winds of 45 knots at 6pm on Sept. 24, 2004. That was right before we went dead in the water. The next day after everything had calmed down and with the way the weather was you would have never known what had happened the night before. I went into the internet cafe and went to check things on NOAA. What I was able to find was that the 5pm (EDT) advisory for Karl on the 24th was the last and becasue it became extra tropical and with the difference in time to where we were this advisory was just after we had gone dead in the water. What I do remember was with Karl that the tropical storm force winds extended out a long ways from the center and what caused our problems.

50 cruises on HAL at the age of 42
535 days at sea on 12 different DAM SHIPS
500 day Gold Medallion holder
Sept. 04 Rotterdam Trans Atlantic Hurricane Karl Survivor
10/07 Canada/New England & Atlantic Coast - Veendam
12/07 Holiday Cruise - Zuiderdam
If Holland America doesn't go there, WE DON'T GO!!!!

[WeLoveCruising]

We were on the Big Red Boat years ago with 600 kids on the ship and we hit a bad storm as we were coming into Cape Canavral, FLorida

They pointed it into the wind and we rode the storm out for 10 hours with 600 screaming kids and adults that acted like children.

Got the biggest kick out of one man who was upset because they would not let his chartered helicopter come and pick hi up from the ship now....

We can sit back and laugh about it now but it was not funny then....

Ruth & Jim

Jim,
Would that Big Red Boat cruise have been somewhere around 1994 perhaps? I think we may have been on that same one with our son. We used to live in Orlando at the time, and there was a tropical storm / hurricane hitting Central Florida.

Joanne

[JimVrhovac]

We were.

If you saw an adult with Bugs Bunny slippers on during that cruise it was me.

Take Care.

Ruth & Jim