Loss of Power on QM2

I was on the QM2 last October when the ship lost power about 9am while I was having breakfast in the Kings Court. Everything was back to normal in an hour -except the elevators which took a little longer and there were no further incidents on that sailing. I haven't read that its happened since, but before that, several posters on Cruise Critc experienced the same thing. There was much discussion and speculation about the cause - computer malfunction, human error. Could you please shed some light on this? I am looking forward to being on the QM2 again in December and hopefully many more times in the future. Thanks for your response.

Dear Keuka Lake Sailor,

Just like on land, ships sometimes experience power outages which we call "blackouts". Thankfully these are not very common.

A ship's generating plant is a very complex system fed by a number of diesel engines and their alternators. Sometimes, as on land, the system trips or experiences a transient condition that causes protection systems to kick in to shut the plant down. This protects the ship and ensures that no major damage is caused.

What is different to the land based example, unless you have your own private emergency generator, is that the ship's emergency generator automatically starts and feeds the ship's essential systems until the main engines can be started and brought on line again. This normally takes a few minutes.

Passenger ships have to be specially designed to cater for this situation, and they are rigorously tested at the commissioning stage to ensure everything works as it should.

So, just like on land, there's nothing to worry about. That said, we do everything we can to prevent such blackouts as they are an inconvenience and cause some temporary disruption.

I hope that this explanation puts your mind at rest. Thank you for your question.

Stephen

That is good news