Highlander0108

Received email from friend onboard. Currently in the middle of F10 storm with 8m seas. Storm was unexpectedly strong. Ship is currently 3-4 hours behind schedule as they have slowed down a bit. Quite spectacular views out of windows at lower levels. Ship and crew coping well.

I've been on both out of NYC. If I had to pick, I prefer the Miracle. It's more liner if you could ever compare it to one. The Miracle has real teak decks, beautifully maintained. I prefer the Serenity on Miracle with the view over the stern. On Spendor, the mineature golf course is one deck above and is a big distraction at times. Miracle is much easier to move about the ship with the one main dining room and not having to go up and over the dining room in the Splendor. We were used to it, but still would forget. Both have forward decks over the bridge for viewing too, but no one seemed to know how to get to it on the Splendor. I also found the Farcus decor on the Splendor harder to adjust to. Miracle is purple while Splendor is pink. I like both ships and would sail on either again though.

CT .... Where does it say that the order from Schettino and then Ambrosio was after the collision ? cannot seem to see it anywhere.

 

"It gets even better...for some reason, the sonar was turned off too....no-one on the bridge would have known the depth of the water under their keel even if they wanted to know.

 

Who the heck had that essential equipment turned off has not been disclosed...yet"

 

Was there not a story some time back in the few weeks after it happened that said certain equipment was not working on Concordia that would be looked at when it returned to Savona? i remember the data recorder was in question as well.

I cannot believe that a ship of this size does not have backup equipment here. Even small yachts have backup systems! I further cannot fathom ANY captain taking a ship to sea without a functioning depthsounder. Really? On that item alone, he is negligent in my books for leaving the docks if essential equipment was non functional. He's responsible for the safety of the ship. Would an airline pilot leave the runway without instrumentation? By all means, I am not defending Costa, but it is beyond belief that there aren't redundant systems here. Take a look at any cruise ship mast and you will see several radars, for instance. Granted some are used for different ranges, but still, there is redundancy here. Someone prove me wrong here that this really isn't an issue that affected the joy riding performance of the captain.

Not at all.

 

But two major engineering incidents in the space of a year is not something that will escape Carnival's insurers. When QM2 had her explosion last year many in the engineering community were very surprised that P&O did not put QM2 in for an inspection and overhaul. The primary reason seems to be the fact that P&O puts all their platform builds in for maintenance every three years. These overhauls are not cheap but having QM2 adhere to that schedule might prove to be a mistake. Given her previous misfortune and knowing first hand how extremely serious a gas turbine fire is P&O/Carnival should look indepth at QM2's operations before their good luck runs out.

I think all the experts here need to stand down until they have all the facts. For those that have not seen this, here is the MAIB report on the capacitor explosion, which was NOT attributed to a lack of maintenance on the part of Cunard, or P&O if you want to go there. http://www.maib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/SB4-10.pdf Condensed version is that the equipment designed to monitor the capacitors did not detect any abnormalities up to the time of the failure. What is TRULY disturbing is that this equipment is used throughout the cruise industry and I would guess that after that incident, every line checked out their equipment thoroughly.

As anyone who pays attention to the very thorough Cunard safety/lifeboat drill at the beginning of every cruise can attest, Cunard takes safety very seriously. I have never experienced a more thorough safety briefing onboard. I would suspect ANY fire onboard would automatically trigger a series of protocols requiring the possibility of manning the lifeboats. It would be an act of negligence if this was not considered.

Let's wait and see just what caught on fire. With the rough weather, one has to wonder if this contributed to the accident, perhaps dislodging equipment or lagging. It seems very odd that the gas turbines themselves were in use since the line has readily admitted they only use them when additional speed (using costly marine gas is used) is needed or one of the other diesels is down for maintenance.

Ken