Lifeboats Allure and Oasis

[deltatango]

I am sitting here looking at the Allure in Port Everglades, now there don't seem to be enough Lifeboats for all passenger and crew, is there more than whats showing on each side ?

[PantherFan]

Don't let the numbers fool you. Those lifeboats are huge. I can't remember how many people fit in each one but I did the count when I was onboard the

Allure and yes everyone fits. Plus they have quite a few of the inflatable ones as well.

[Rancher Dave]

The lifeboats hold tons of folks...lifeboats for pax and some crew the rest of the crew get rubber rafts. Captain does NOT have to go down with the ship...:)

 

No need to worry there is plenty of lifeboat capacity to safely evac everyone off the ship with room to spare.

 

The liferafts are not very visibile until you walk around deck 5 when you will see tons of containers with huge liferafts.

[Crockett]

I am sitting here looking at the Allure in Port Everglades, now there don't seem to be enough Lifeboats for all passenger and crew, is there more than whats showing on each side ?

 

Well from what I see it looks like Suites and above get the life boats as for everyone else it life jackets lol

[Paulxyz2004]

I am sitting here looking at the Allure in Port Everglades, now there don't seem to be enough Lifeboats for all passenger and crew, is there more than whats showing on each side ?

 

Talking about lifeboats, it´s "just" the 18 lifeboats you see on the side, each holding 370 persons (6660 all in all).

Of course there´s a large amount of life rafts in addition to the life boats.

Not sure how many and for how many persons, but rest assured there´s way more than enough rescue vessels onboard to accomodate everybody onboard in case of an emergency.

[dioxide45]

Of course, expect that if the ship is going down that you will be packed in to the life boats like sardines. The prior post indicated each holds 370 people. Your personal comfort is not important should the boat be sinking.

[deltatango]

So what if its listing badly to one side, thats what usually happens just before a ship sinks, so half will be out of action and its over to life rafts, now thats a long way down to dive off that ship for a life raft. :eek:

[Hypo]

Two of those lifeboats will hold more passengers than were on our first cruise ship. (Commodore Cruise Lines Enchanted Seas) That ship only had 630 passengers on board.

[brfan]

So what if its listing badly to one side, thats what usually happens just before a ship sinks, so half will be out of action and its over to life rafts, now thats a long way down to dive off that ship for a life raft. :eek:

 

I was wondering how the rafts work. Do the crew really have to dive off the ship (hopefully not landing on another crew member when they do so) and swim to the rafts or is there some other method used? I wonder if being able to swim is a job requirement?

[Hypo]

The new ships also have a couple of storage shed size units on each side of the ship. These have rollup doors, like garage doors, When they use these, they push the internal package out the sea side, it unfolds down to the sea and then opens up into 4 connected liferafts, each will hold over 100 people. The neat thing is that to board these life rafts, you jump into a cloth chute and slide down to the rafts in a controlled manner.

 

Here is a video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7MtugSVJo8

 

I have seen other videos, but this was the only one I could quickly find.

[dioxide45]

So what if its listing badly to one side, thats what usually happens just before a ship sinks, so half will be out of action and its over to life rafts, now thats a long way down to dive off that ship for a life raft. :eek:

 

Hopefully the boats are all deployed before the ship is listing and just about to sink. Once they know it is sinking, they should be deploying the boats, it probably won't start to list for a while.

[Paulxyz2004]

I was wondering how the rafts work. Do the crew really have to dive off the ship (hopefully not landing on another crew member when they do so) and swim to the rafts or is there some other method used? I wonder if being able to swim is a job requirement?

 

You don´t think it´s pax = lifeboat and crew = liferaft? Do you?

 

Passengers will have to get into rafts as well, just crew will be in the boats.

[deltatango]

The new ships also have a couple of storage shed size units on each side of the ship. These have rollup doors, like garage doors, When they use these, they push the internal package out the sea side, it unfolds down to the sea and then opens up into 4 connected liferafts, each will hold over 100 people. The neat thing is that to board these life rafts, you jump into a cloth chute and slide down to the rafts in a controlled manner.

 

Here is a video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7MtugSVJo8

 

I have seen other videos, but this was the only one I could quickly find.

 

Boy he hit the ground hard, imagine that at 150ft.........:confused:

 

Our first cruise when we were on the tarmac at Puerto Rico airport just taxing out to the runway a engine caught fire on a BA flight, the cabin filled with fuel in the air, I was already up and ready to go for the chute the Mrs run the wrong way and I had to get her and get us to the chute now they are not a 1/10 of the length a cruise ship chute would be, she hurt her leg I hurt my back, but boy I have never ran as fast in my life away from that plane, it was in the papers and on Sky news, we did get a free cruise out of it. :D

[wieslaw]

So what if its listing badly to one side, thats what usually happens just before a ship sinks, so half will be out of action and its over to life rafts, now thats a long way down to dive off that ship for a life raft. :eek:

 

Hi,

I guess you are right, none of us thinks that something like that will ever happen to us ........ and I hope not ....... but it could.

 

What is the listing angle for a ship like Allure to make the one side inoperational ?

Wes

[Hypo]

Boy he hit the ground hard, imagine that at 150ft.........:confused:

 

Our first cruise when we were on the tarmac at Puerto Rico airport just taxing out to the runway a engine caught fire on a BA flight, the cabin filled with fuel in the air, I was already up and ready to go for the chute the Mrs run the wrong way and I had to get her and get us to the chute now they are not a 1/10 of the length a cruise ship chute would be, she hurt her leg I hurt my back, but boy I have never ran as fast in my life away from that plane, it was in the papers and on Sky news, we did get a free cruise out of it. :D

 

 

Wrong message quoted.

[DEIx15x8]

So what if its listing badly to one side, thats what usually happens just before a ship sinks, so half will be out of action and its over to life rafts, now thats a long way down to dive off that ship for a life raft. :eek:

By law all ships must be able to safely evacuate everyone onboard from one side of the ship. That means that they have enough inflatable rafts on each side of the ship to counter the loss of every boat on the other side. If you they wanted they could safely evacuate everyone from the ship reload them and do it again without reusing any of the lifeboats.

[Wildcatfish]

"Near, far, where ever you are..."

 

Ok, I can't be the only one who thought of that song while reading about lifeboats and a sinking ship.

[Desert Cruizers]

At least now, there is no 1st class or steerage, everone goes in the Lifeboat together according to your being on the Port or Starboard side.

[deltatango]

By law all ships must be able to safely evacuate everyone onboard from one side of the ship. That means that they have enough inflatable rafts on each side of the ship to counter the loss of every boat on the other side. If you they wanted they could safely evacuate everyone from the ship reload them and do it again without reusing any of the lifeboats.

 

Have you ever heard of a cruise ship evacuating all its passenger and crew in any test, like a plane does to test out how fast you can get everyone off a plane.

 

Maybe they have done this, but I have never heard of it, it might be a law but will it work in practise ?

[deltatango]

The Allure is Just started moving out of port

 

http://portevergladeswebcam.com/

[DEIx15x8]

Have you ever heard of a cruise ship evacuating all its passenger and crew in any test, like a plane does to test out how fast you can get everyone off a plane.

 

Maybe they have done this, but I have never heard of it, it might be a law but will it work in practise ?

 

Not that I know of. I know that they rotate through groups to test evacuating a lifeboat during inspections (and sometimes even have crew as passengers to fill them) but I don't think they've ever done one of those full trial runs like planes do. I guess they assume that if it works on 1 they can multiply it for the rest. Planes have a space issue to worry about which is part of why they test, on a ship you don't have the same kind of internal space issues.

[brfan]

You don´t think it´s pax = lifeboat and crew = liferaft? Do you?

 

Passengers will have to get into rafts as well, just crew will be in the boats.

 

Then why aren't instruction given to passengers regarding the rafts? No one has answered my question as to how those rafts work - do whoever needs to use them have to jump overboard and swim to them (if they can swim that is) or are they inflated and people board and lowered down like they do with the lifeboats.

 

As far as I know the rafts are for crew and lifeboats (with some crew driving them) are for passengers. However, if there was a circumstance that there weren't enough lifeboats, I guess the passengers would get and hopefully enough room left over for the crew too.

 

I have no idea what you mean regarding only crew in the lifeboats, I assume you are being sarcastic, but have no idea why. :confused:

[Hypo]

Life rafts that are housed in the white canisters that are mounted around the ship on open decks are designed to float away from the ship in the event of sinking, they also have a device mounted on them that causes the life raft canister to open and automatically inflate when the device senses that it is in the sea.

 

Look at them the next time you are onbard and notice that they all have steel bars mounted above them, that are designed to cause the raft to float free and not be trapped under any superstructure that is above.

 

People that are in the water, should be buoyed by their life vests. They can swim to the nearest raft, and pull themselves aboard, or be helped aboard by someone else. Additionally, the motorized life boats have ropes along their sides that people in the water could hold onto. The life boat could either haul the person aboard or tow them to the nearest life raft.

[DEIx15x8]

Life rafts that are housed in the white canisters that are mounted around the ship on open decks are designed to float away from the ship in the event of sinking, they also have a device mounted on them that causes the life raft canister to open and automatically inflate when the device senses that it is in the sea.

 

Look at them the next time you are onbard and notice that they all have steel bars mounted above them, that are designed to cause the raft to float free and not be trapped under any superstructure that is above.

 

People that are in the water, should be buoyed by their life vests. They can swim to the nearest raft, and pull themselves aboard, or be helped aboard by someone else. Additionally, the motorized life boats have ropes along their sides that people in the water could hold onto. The life boat could either haul the person aboard or tow them to the nearest life raft.

 

Those canister life rafts really are a lot more advanced looking than you would think when you see the can sitting on deck. I think they may also be able to lift them using the life boat cranes to ease loading of them, maybe someone else can verify that.

[EVALUATOR]

Then why aren't instruction given to passengers regarding the rafts? No one has answered my question as to how those rafts work - do whoever needs to use them have to jump overboard and swim to them (if they can swim that is) or are they inflated and people board and lowered down like they do with the lifeboats.

 

As far as I know the rafts are for crew and lifeboats (with some crew driving them) are for passengers. However, if there was a circumstance that there weren't enough lifeboats, I guess the passengers would get and hopefully enough room left over for the crew too.

 

I have no idea what you mean regarding only crew in the lifeboats, I assume you are being sarcastic, but have no idea why. :confused:

 

To get in the inflatable rafts you "step over the side" of the ship. If you did this from say deck 11, you would probably be seriously injured when you hit the water.

 

Stepping over would happen from a lower deck, or after the ship sank or listed enough to greatly lessen the distance to the water. When the raft is deployed it will inflate, then the person would swim, paddle, or be towed to the raft. They would then crawl in.

 

It is very important to wear your life jacket properly so as not to break your neck if having to step over from a high distance from the water.

 

Here is a video of a raft deployment.