Anthem....What if?

Once that storm got severe, from around 3:30pm until 1:30am I can tell you with absolute certainty that there was no way lifeboats were an option. This is why I found the discussion about lifejackets in the room to be hilarious. Trying to launch the lifeboats would've been fatal. Trying to get into the water with a lifejacket would've been fatal. Going down with the ship would've been fatal but the ship going down was the option with the best odds of not happening. Sitting in our room, I knew the only way that ship would go down is if the engines totally failed and the ship got sideways into the wind and got swamped with water, so as long as the ship had power and maintained its position into the wind I was fine. Trust me, I spent all night checking the TV's map to make sure we were still into the wind and had slight thrust (most of the night it was between 1 and 4 knots).

If one pod did fail then unfortunately your worst case scenario was closer

than any passenger knew, or not.

 

More details of the boats launched and not launched is here:

http://www.rina.org.uk/costa_concordia_passenger_evacuation.html

I know its not the topic of this thread but this Concordia article is a fascinating read. Thanks for posting!

Wonder if any of the passengers on board called the US Coast Guard. If for nothing else just to alert them of the situation they were experiencing. Just in case the ship did happen to, God forbid, start going down - the Coast Guard could be on the way....

If one pod did fail then unfortunately your worst case scenario was closer

than any passenger knew, or not.

Depends. I don't know the design specifics of Quantum class but I know the large ships have two azipods (or three?), a main propellor for forward thrust, and bow thrusters for lateral movement of the front end. I don't know if the combo of any of those would've worked as well. Funny thing is, we spent most of the night tipped to starboard, which I assume meant the wind was blowing in from the portside, and I would think that would call for the starboard engine to run harder (to try to keep us upright). Yet the starboard one was full blast the next day, and the portside one barely working. (And the portside one WAS working, as you can tell from the pics... but just barely. Probably looked like about 10-20% of normal.)

This is as of 2012.

 

Regulations require each side of cruise ships have enough lifeboats to accommodate 37.5% of the total number of persons on board (passengers and crew), 75% in total. Inflatable or rigid liferafts must accommodate the remaining 25% of passengers and crew. (SOLAS, Section II, Regulation 21, 1.1)

Sounds like each side cannot handle the entire ship's population.

 

Depends. I don't know the design specifics of Quantum class but I know the large ships have two azipods (or three?) ...

Voyager and Freedom class have two azipods and one fixipod. Oasis class has three azipods. From what I can discern, Quantum looks to have only two azipods.

Once that storm got severe, from around 3:30pm until 1:30am I can tell you with absolute certainty that there was no way lifeboats were an option. This is why I found the discussion about lifejackets in the room to be hilarious. Trying to launch the lifeboats would've been fatal. Trying to get into the water with a lifejacket would've been fatal. Going down with the ship would've been fatal but the ship going down was the option with the best odds of not happening. Sitting in our room, I knew the only way that ship would go down is if the engines totally failed and the ship got sideways into the wind and got swamped with water, so as long as the ship had power and maintained its position into the wind I was fine. Trust me, I spent all night checking the TV's map to make sure we were still into the wind and had slight thrust (most of the night it was between 1 and 4 knots).

The mere fact a rational person that was actually on board was thinking like this tells folks how bad it was... Its easy for people not on the ship to say they'd just hunker down and play naked twister in their cabins...

Wonder if any of the passengers on board called the US Coast Guard. If for nothing else just to alert them of the situation they were experiencing. Just in case the ship did happen to, God forbid, start going down - the Coast Guard could be on the way....

A diabetic interviewed on WNBC NY said that he did call the Coast Guard from the ship.

Sounds like each side cannot handle the entire ship's population.

my comment does not make any claim as to whether one side or the other of any cruise ship can handle the entire population on board or not. I simply posted the regulation for the minimum requirement.

A diabetic interviewed on WNBC NY said that he did call the Coast Guard from the ship.

I cannot imagine what the Coast Guard might have been able to accomplish given Anthem's size and passenger/crew count even if they forged into the storm with the ship :confused:

Maybe they could have gotten a few more engineers on board, though a ship-to-ship transfer in that storm sounds remarkably unlikely, and helicopters wouldn't have been flyable.

Tugboats aren't going to be plunging through that kind of storm, and setting up lines that would snap given the forces wasn't going to happen either.

Love the Coast Guard, but I just can't see what they could have accomplished in this situation.

I cannot imagine what the Coast Guard might have been able to accomplish given Anthem's size and passenger/crew count even if they forged into the storm with the ship :confused:

 

Maybe they could have gotten a few more engineers on board, though a ship-to-ship transfer in that storm sounds remarkably unlikely, and helicopters wouldn't have been flyable.

 

Tugboats aren't going to be plunging through that kind of storm, and setting up lines that would snap given the forces wasn't going to happen either.

 

Love the Coast Guard, but I just can't see what they could have accomplished in this situation.

That's a pretty scary thought. Perhaps a testament to the ship it "weathered the storm" but to think all those souls were truly at the mercy of the Captain is frightening beyond.

It would not be possible to deploy the lifeboats in those conditions, and would not be safe to do so. Fortunately there are many more life rafts than necessary for all passengers and crew. So if the lifeboats could not be use, the life rafts would have to do.

People would have to remain aboard as long as possible. If the ship sinks, the life rafts deploy automatically, and you would have to swim to a nearby raft (very difficult in those conditions, and boarding would be difficult as well...best bet might be to just hang on to one).

If the ship were afloat but people had to leave (such as a major fire), the rafts can be deployed manually, and you'd have to jump into the water and try to find a raft to hang on to.

This is as of 2012.

 

Regulations require each side of cruise ships have enough lifeboats to accommodate 37.5% of the total number of persons on board (passengers and crew), 75% in total. Inflatable or rigid liferafts must accommodate the remaining 25% of passengers and crew. (SOLAS, Section II, Regulation 21, 1.1)

While that's the regulation, most cruise ships have enough capacity in the rafts alone to accommodate everyone. Rafts don't take up much room, and there are many more than required by regulation.

I cannot imagine what the Coast Guard might have been able to accomplish given Anthem's size and passenger/crew count even if they forged into the storm with the ship :confused:

 

Maybe they could have gotten a few more engineers on board, though a ship-to-ship transfer in that storm sounds remarkably unlikely, and helicopters wouldn't have been flyable.

 

Tugboats aren't going to be plunging through that kind of storm, and setting up lines that would snap given the forces wasn't going to happen either.

 

Love the Coast Guard, but I just can't see what they could have accomplished in this situation.

Calling the Coast Guard in this event was the equivalent of calling home to your mother. Outside of pinpointing your position, there was absolutely nothing they would or could do.

Ship to ship transfer??? No ship would want to be within 10 nautical miles of each other during this event. In the Navy we would routinely have emergency breakaway's (in what we would term calm seas) while refueling or replenishing, it would not be attempted in anything greater as it is dangerous even on flat seas.

After watching the time lapse video tonight of just how bad the waves were getting it made me think, how could you even deploy the life boats if needed?

 

I'm starting this as a separate thread because this is less about the facts of what occurred with Anthem and more about the hypothetical of any ship in that situation.

 

As an Engineer, I can tell you a catastrophe is rarely caused by one failure, but a combination of failures.

 

So the question is, what if there was a call to abandon ship in the height of that storm. Would it even be possible? You've got the extreme motions of the ship and very high winds. You've got people on outside decks now trying to fight that to get into the life boats, and then you have the challenge of even trying to get them deployed.

 

So, what would the situation be that would likely cause this... I assume the most obvious would be loss of propulsion. It's widely known to have happened in multiple situations of cruise ships completely losing propulsion. The Azipods probably also aren't the best type of system to handle this kind of seas, and from the other thread it looks like this may have been an instance where 1 of the 2 Azipods did indeed fail.

 

So if you lose propulsion, the ship is going to turn fairly quickly where it is taking the waves broadside, the listing will get much much worse than it was and at some point has the very likely possibility to roll. How long does that take?

 

As the listing gets worse, how does that affect the ability of launching life boats? It's been seen in other situations like the Costa Concordia where once it lists past a certain angle it becomes impossible to launch them on one side if not both.

 

Yes, the situation with Anthem turned out good with no serious injuries, but I do seriously fear the situation could have quite easily gone the other way and it brings serious questions to mind about the ability to evacuate if it had.

 

Maybe some of the folks on here might have some insight. Given this, an NTSB investigation certainly makes a lot more sense to me now. There are plenty of "close-calls" in aviation that happen and get investigated to prevent them from happening again. I think this could have been a closer call than we realize....

 

Scott

As a passenger on that ship I would not have been happy if that was even considered.

Wonder if any of the passengers on board called the US Coast Guard. If for nothing else just to alert them of the situation they were experiencing. Just in case the ship did happen to, God forbid, start going down - the Coast Guard could be on the way....

I heard that one elderly passenger did call the coast guard requesting a helicopter so he could get off the ship. He would have paid all expenses. don't know where I read this but it was posted.

I was on Anthem of the Seas when this all came down...

Calling the Coast Guard in this event was the equivalent of calling home to your mother. Outside of pinpointing your position, there was absolutely nothing they would or could do.

Ship to ship transfer??? No ship would want to be within 10 nautical miles of each other during this event. In the Navy we would routinely have emergency breakaway's (in what we would term calm seas) while refueling or replenishing, it would not be attempted in anything greater as it is dangerous even on flat seas

Thank you for your service!

Yikes - If the ship started going down - then what?

I heard that one elderly passenger did call the coast guard requesting a helicopter so he could get off the ship. He would have paid all expenses. don't know where I read this but it was posted.

I was on Anthem of the Seas when this all came down...

WOW - last place I would think anyone would want to be is a helicopter in that storm - perhaps he was hitting the minibar a bit too hard....

I guess - I would just want them (Coast Guard) to know we were out there bobbing around in 30 Ft seas with 100MPH plus winds and Captain Kooky is telling us everything is ok - when clearly it was not...I wonder if the Captain or RCL let the Coast Guard know....

Very glad you and the rest made it home!!

Thank you for your service!

 

Yikes - If the ship started going down - then what?

Do not want to think about it but something of this magnitude would make people all but forget about the Titanic.

Debate if to post this or not but here goes

I slightly insight to what I know, as others have said nearly impossible to launch the lifeboats in the conditions that Anthem was experiencing, first reason to safely launch a boat at sea it is far easier and safer for the mother vessel to be making headway and secondly ideally for the boat to be launch to be in the lee of the ship meaning that the ship would need to have the wind 20 /30 degrees on the port or starboard bow.

So you have the boat level with 5th or whatever is the open deck and passengers are loaded the boat is then lowered towards the seas here come another problem most for these lifeboats are on a quick release gearing meaning that once the boat comes in to connect with enough water to take the boats weight it would be released, one freak wave even in the lee of the mother vessel and the boat could plummet 20/30 feet in the conditions that Anthem was in.

The life rafts that are carried are the white containers that are secured to the open deck normally release by a hydrostatic release at a certain depth of water once the ship starters to sink, these can manually be release and pushed over the side a line know as a painter is normally attached to the side of the ship by pulling on the painter it releases a pin inside and activates the gas cylinders which inflates that raft, these can inflate upside down these are not the easiest thing to turn over even in calm seas, the main problem is also that everyone using these has to enter the water first the danger from that is primarily secondary drowning from the sea spray while attempting to swim to the life raft and of cause the cold I.E. hypothermia.

Lifejackets used are of a solid structure jumping from 40 feet in one of those could lead to a neck injure and a far lot worse so the question is to wear a life jacket or not, there are lifejackets available that inflate on contact with water you pop it over your head secure the straps around yourself and jump into the water and by the time you surface it is inflated, during my time in the Royal Navy the life jackets we had you 2/3 inflated by mouth jumped in to the water then on surfacing you full inflated them these also had a face cover which help to prevent secondary drown from the sea spray we also had what where call survival suits a cheap version of a dry bag which on entering the life raft could be removed and clothes underneath should be dry.

I’m no expert this is just my insight on how one might survive at sea.

Obviously all would have drowned if the ship would have broken and gone under.

But having said that, it did not and if every ship in storm would break there would be no ships. Ships are made to withstand storm and they do so dont really understand all the what ifs, nothing of essence broke, it was just a hell of a storm. Probably should have stayed at port, but as all is well whats the fuss? Storms come and go.

And ships will sink but most likely due to human error nowadays. Lifeboat drills are however for different kind of situations, in a storm a ship is on its own.

Obviously all would have drowned if the ship would have broken and gone under.

 

But having said that, it did not and if every ship in storm would break there would be no ships. Ships are made to withstand storm and they do so dont really understand all the what ifs, nothing of essence broke, it was just a hell of a storm. Probably should have stayed at port, but as all is well whats the fuss? Storms come and go.

 

And ships will sink but most likely due to human error nowadays. Lifeboat drills are however for different kind of situations, in a storm a ship is on its own.

The danger here wasn't the likelihood of the hull breaking, it was loss of propulsion and then the winds turning the ship broadside against the waves. The ship is also a very tall flat surface that is relatively narrow, which means when it is in that position it is much easier for it roll over on it's side and then go down....

I wonder if damage to the azipod contributed to the decision to turn back to Bayonne rather than continue through the storm. Even in calm seas, loss of a propulsion unit might very well require aborting an itinerary. In Fall 2006 I was on Oosterdam when a fire took out one of her azipods: we cancelled a port call and returned to San Diego a day early at reduced speed. I have heard that she sailed on a number of itineraries before repairs were effected.

In Anthem's case, in. addition to the remaining azipod, the bow thrusters would have been available to help keep the ship on best heading.

Thanks to everyone for the good discussion in this thread. It was better than I was expecting to get on here and I learned a few new things in the process.

Of course the Moderators have now moved it to another forum where it will basically get lost. I anticipated when I posted it they would kill it one way or the other. At least they didn't delete the whole discussion....

Thanks,

Scott

Okay, another thread with a lot of misinformation here. I'll try to go down the topics in order of posting.

To the OP. Read the thread "Propulsion Damage on Anthem" to see my description of the damage to the azipod there, based on the statements by the USCG spokesman as reported widely here on CC. The pod was fully operational, but the overtorque protection clutches on the steering part of the pod had burned out, so as the USCG stated "the pod was shut down as a precaution (bolding mine)".

Most of the cruise ships that have completely lost power do not meet the 2010 Safe Return to Port regulations regarding redundancy of propulsion and power generation. Anthem does.

Lifeboats are designed to be capable of being launched at 30* list, if I remember right, it might be more, I don't have the regs at my fingertips right now.

With reference to the Costa Concordia. 23 of 26 boats were successfully launched. The ship did not list more than 15* in either direction until it finally came to rest against the island of Giglio, at which time the fact that the starboard side was aground caused the free surface of the water in the hull to tip it over. Had Schettino called the muster immediately upon learning that the ship was flooding (within 3-5 minutes of striking the rock), instead of nearly one hour later, the passengers would have been at stations, the boats could have been loaded orderly, and all boats would have been able to be launched.

And, again, the NTSB has no jurisdiction in cases of foreign flag ships in international waters. The Bahamas Maritime Authority is investigating, and has asked for USCG assistance. Even for the El Faro, which was a US flag vessel, the USCG is lead agency, and will ask for assistance from the NTSB if needed.

The quote from SOLAS about the requirement for 75% of total souls onboard is correct. This will always provide enough lifeboat capacity for 100% of passengers, plus the crew assigned to the boat (2 or 3), plus some spare room. There is not 100% on each side. With the addition of the liferafts, which are the primary escape for the crew, provides 125% capacity of total souls onboard.

Rolloman states the old maritime saying: "the ship is the best lifeboat. If the ship isn't sinking, don't leave it". Someone asked on another thread (Propulsion Damage?) what would happen if a ship loses power in a storm like this, read my explanation there.

The boats could very likely have been launched by Anthem, but there would have been a lot of casualties from people not following instructions and the crew trying to help them. People cite that boat drills are done in port, in good weather, and this is true. But there is a huge difference between a drill and an actual abandon ship. In a drill, you have to get the boats back onboard, or your cruise stops right there. Lifeboats are designed to do one thing. Take a bunch of people on a one way trip down the side of the ship and get away from it. They do this very well. However, the same mechanics that make them so easy to get away from the ship, also makes it extremely difficult, under the best conditions, to reattach and retrieve the boat. This is the dangerous part of boat training.

For jd10367: the azipods provide the forward propulsion, there is no main propeller on an azipod ship. The propulsion, whether shafted propellers or azipods have no effect on keeping the ship upright. That is simply a function of the ship's stability, the wind force on the side of the ship, and the ability to move weight (fuel, water, ballast) to counteract the listing. As for your later post about the ship being swamped and going down, read my post mentioned above about ships that lose power in storms.

Seavoyage: any time you are on a ship, you are truly at the mercy of the Captain.

ehfl: Being in a liferaft is not much safer than a lifeboat, particularly a partially enclosed boat like the cruise ships have. The ships do not have enough capacity to carry everyone in rafts.

Barnet is somewhat correct. Typical naval or merchant ship liferafts are either manually deployed to the sea and you jump in, or they release when the ship sinks to a given depth. However, cruise ship liferafts are either "davit launched", which means they are lifted out of their cradle by an arm, lowered to the embarkation deck, inflated there, loaded with personnel, and then lowered to the water where they are released. The wire is then retrieved and the next raft is inflated and lowered. Another type is the "marine evacuation system" where the rafts are launched over the side in a group of typically four rafts, and a canvas chute deploys which extends from the deck to one of the rafts. This chute has baffles in it, you jump into it, and the baffles slow your fall, and you land in the raft, and then move to one of the other rafts.

Barnet is also not completely correct about the launching mechanism for the boats. The boats are true "off load release", which means that the hooks holding the boat to the wire falls will not release until the weight has come off (the boat is supported by the water). However, there are two chambers, one forward and one aft, that sense when the water has reached a pre-determined level outside the boat (calculated to support the weight of boat and passengers), so that freak wave would have to support both ends of the boat at the same time for it to release. These chambers also have dampeners in them, to slow the response, so both chambers have to see sufficient water for 2-3 seconds, simultaneously, to release.

Back to the OP, again, you have to look at a ship like those punching clowns. A very small weight at the bottom keeps it coming right back up at you. To repeat my statements in the other thread, even a ship without power, broadside to the seas, without a broach of the hull below the water line, causing free surface water to flow back and forth, will survive nearly every storm. The people onboard may wish they hadn't survived, but the ship will not likely roll over and stay that way, or break up.

Happy to answer any other questions, or anything I missed so far on this thread.