Carnival ship aground off San Juan Harbor?

Given the configuration of the Conquest class aft mooring stations, I don't think they are storing a spare anchor chain there. A pile of 1000' of anchor chain takes up quite a lot of space. What I think you saw was a short (60' or so) length of chain that is part of the emergency towing arrangement required on all vessels. This chain is much more resistant to chafing and wear than a mooring line or wire, and in emergency towing situations the angle the line takes from the ship to the towing vessel can vary widely and not be optimum, so they use a short length of chain at the ship, and shackle this to a towing wire or synthetic line.

Wow lol I was on the ship. It really wasn’t as bad as everyone makes it sound. The only way we were affected was that we arrived in Grand Turk a couple hours late but they let us stay late so we got all of our time there. The captain kept in constant contact with the guests informing them of any updates. Other than that, It was business as usual. We were told by the cruise director that it was a mechanical error that caused the anchor to release, it was not human error.

I was also on this cruise and it did cause a bit of excitement - after leaving San Juan harbour and heading out to sea, all of a sudden noted more 'rocking' and then not moving? Captain did come on to explain the situation - did not sound too serious or that we were in any danger.

We just sat there rocking and rolling -and to be quite honest the cruise itself was a bit rocky and this was not as bad as some of the rough seas we had already experienced LOL.

We were 'stuck' for over 4 hours and things on the ship were going on as usual (dinner/comedy club/etc)...and we finally started moving after 8:30 pm - with as mentioned an adjusted stop in Grand Turk (1:30 to 7 pm)....

Glad it went smoothly and that everyone was safe and sound!

Sorry for the confusion on my last post. Spirit class and two fantasy class carry spare propellers - Conquest is the anchor.

Sorry for the confusion on my last post. Spirit class and two fantasy class carry spare propellers - Conquest is the anchor.

It would make perfect sense for large ships to carry both as spares. I'm sure that neither are off-the-shelf parts. Without spares on board, loss or damage could render the ship out of service for months.

Well, the relatively small propeller on my tanker weighs 17 tons. Even the Titanic's propellers were 38 tons each, and the largest propellers in the world, on the Emma Maersk and her sister ships of the Maersk Lines E-class container ships, weigh in at a whopping 131 tons. Most cruise ship propellers are in the 30-40 ton range.

Wow, I stand corrected, in a big way. :)

But I do agree with you that some ships carry spare anchors.

Given the configuration of the Conquest class aft mooring stations, I don't think they are storing a spare anchor chain there. A pile of 1000' of anchor chain takes up quite a lot of space. What I think you saw was a short (60' or so) length of chain that is part of the emergency towing arrangement required on all vessels. This chain is much more resistant to chafing and wear than a mooring line or wire, and in emergency towing situations the angle the line takes from the ship to the towing vessel can vary widely and not be optimum, so they use a short length of chain at the ship, and shackle this to a towing wire or synthetic line.

I usually skip over and ignore most postings on these boards...

But whenever I see a post from Chengkp, I always stop to read it, as it’s usually very insightful and interesting! I wish there were more folks like this on CC.