Explorer propulsion problem....

[Jllewy]

On the ship now & the captain announced we will not depart until at least 8pm due to inspections being performed. We will be at dinner (starboard side), unfortunately, so will miss a beautiful sail away. Not picking on NJ, by the way.

[ryano]

YES! It was very scary. We left Bermuda early to "beat" the hurricane with a propulsion problem that we were never told was "fixed" until late Tuesday morning when were also told that we still needed to completely stop the ship for "readings". All I had going through my head was the ship breaking down and the hurricane on our tail. If you watched the captain's speech (I saw it on the tv) he showed us exactly where we would be and where Cristobal would be as we sailed. It was quite frightening. Thoughts of the ship not moving fast enough or completely breaking down with a hurricane following us was not very comforting. Of course that was my "worst case scenario" thinking but you know how your mind always goes there at some point before you talk some sense into yourself...

 

I hope that one of our resident Captains will see this and explain better but Im pretty sure ALL RCI ships use some type of redundant system and in no time or in any way were you ever in jeopardy of completely breaking down and being stuck in the middle of a hurricane.

 

Again, hopefully someone with much more experience in this than I (I have none) can explain in detail.

[mark290]

I hope that one of our resident Captains will see this and explain better but Im pretty sure ALL RCI ships use some type of redundant system and in no time or in any way were you ever in jeopardy of completely breaking down and being stuck in the middle of a hurricane.

 

Again, hopefully someone with much more experience in this than I (I have none) can explain in detail.

 

Of course that could never happen. Just ask the people on that Carnival cruise.

[ryano]

......

Edited August 28, 2014 by ryano

[krissi10400]

I hope that one of our resident Captains will see this and explain better but Im pretty sure ALL RCI ships use some type of redundant system and in no time or in any way were you ever in jeopardy of completely breaking down and being stuck in the middle of a hurricane.

 

Again, hopefully someone with much more experience in this than I (I have none) can explain in detail.

 

I am sure that is completely true but I am someone with absolutely NO experience in how a ship works. And like I said sometimes your mind goes to the "worst case" scenarios first in situations such as this. And we had a beautiful ride back so my nerves were calmed very quickly...

[krissi10400]

People on this board are so funny. I am on at least 15 message boards on various topics and have never seen such outright malice if god forbid anyone says anything negative about ________ (fill in the blank - in this case it's cruising). This helps me to understand why I don't like cruising if this is the type of people I will be spending my vacation with :p

[jstraw20]

I'd say that it's safe to assume that there are still several layers of redundancy left on Explorer. Being down to the 2 azipods reduces the top cruising speed from around 22 knots down to 18, which is still pretty fast. My guess is the ship could still make headway on just one pod. The azipods are electrically driven (I assume the fixed prop is too but I'm guessing at that) and there should be tons of redundant power available from the gennys that provide power for non propulsion things should the propulsion gennys all go out at once. Unlikely but you never know...

 

I should qualify this by saying that I don't know this for a fact but most of the much smaller boats I have piloted are set up to shunt electrical power around in pretty much every conceivable way. I would think cruise ships would too. The more redundancy the better, especially if you are operating far offshore.

[sr71pav]

People on this board are so funny. I am on at least 15 message boards on various topics and have never seen such outright malice if god forbid anyone says anything negative about ________ (fill in the blank - in this case it's cruising). This helps me to understand why I don't like cruising if this is the type of people I will be spending my vacation with :p

 

If you don't like cruising, why do you follow these boards?

[BND]

Of course that could never happen. Just ask the people on that Carnival cruise.

 

Carnival ships were not built with redundancy like RCI ships are, so not a fair or true comparison. The propulsion issue affected one of three azipods which only means they can't reach full speed, but they can keep moving.

 

As for stopping for the readings, that is standard after a repair. We had a propulsion repair done on Enchantment (I keep saying GR in other posts because it was out of Baltimore) in Port Canaveral (port stop on our Bahamas itinerary) and after we left, we did the same thing.

 

At no time was anyone in any danger. Not to mention, the hurricane wasn't chasing them.

Edited August 28, 2014 by BND

[springaussie]

On the ship now & the captain announced we will not depart until at least 8pm due to inspections being performed. We will be at dinner (starboard side), unfortunately, so will miss a beautiful sail away. Not picking on NJ, by the way.

 

 

Thanks for the update.

Enjoy your cruise.

 

 

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[MastaBlasta]

I was on this cruise and will have a full review coming in a day or so. Will post back and let ya'll know.

[BND]

I've got the NY harborcam up and listening in. Explorer just reported last lines being brought up and will be leaving soon.

 

As a side, a ferry boat just reported running over a unlit rubber boat and said the guy onboard said he's okay, but he took off. I think they're probably going after him.

[bermudashorts]

http://www.portbermudawebcam.com/

 

they have the propeller off.. hopefully a new part came in ;)

[dulcimergirl]

Well good, it will be nice to know the ship I'm getting on in 1 day and some hours has all its motor's running. Thanks. All in all, I think I would rather be cruising to Bermuda!! But will settle for the New England, Canada cruse.

I am so ready to go...:D

[cruzinlady1947]

Just got off the Explorer on Saturday. We had no problems with the ship. It did leave late from Bayonne, but other than that, we arrived at all our ports on time and only left Boston about a half hour late due to our excursion getting back from Salem later than boarding time. All was good.

 

There were divers coming aboard when we left the Explorer on Saturday. Hopefully they can get it fixed while in Bermuda. We've been on the Explorer before when they had divers fixing a problem with the props several years ago. They started fixing it in Bayonne and finished at one of the other ports on our cruise to Canada/New England.

 

 

Gwen :)

[emmy]

Capture of the propellers this morning on the barge in Bermuda

http://www.portbermudawebcam.com

 

 

[alligeek]

Very cool... thank you for posting that, emmy! I love the Port Bermuda webcam.

 

Does anyone know the extent of the work they're doing today and whether this is a Band-Aid to keep Ex going until the drydock or a true solution?

 

 

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[jobowl]

I hope this is a solution. We board on Thurs.

[cruzinlady1947]

I hope this is a solution. We board on Thurs.

Even with the prop being bad, we had no problems with our Canada/New England cruise last week. You should be fine. The ship doesn't have to go the high speeds to make the ports.

 

Happy sailing. Hope you have a great cruise. I know we did.

 

 

Gwen :)

[gc]

Capture of the propellers this morning on the barge in Bermuda

http://www.portbermudawebcam.com

 

 

 

 

Emmy,

 

Have you heard why they are replacing the propeller??:confused:

 

gc

[dancinman66]

Amazing what repairs they can do on the run

Qm2 carries a full set of spare blades on her front deck so to do changes if necessary

 

 

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[FortheloveofDCL]

Ok so is she fixed or bandaid been placed on her... ??? I leave on the 20th and don't want a broken ship!!!

 

 

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[emmy]

Emmy,

 

Have you heard why they are replacing the propeller??:confused:

 

gc

 

 

Sorry I don't here is a capture of the barge leaving with what appears to be 2 blades on it

 

[gc]

Sorry I don't here is a capture of the barge leaving with what appears to be 2 blades on it

 

 

 

Thanks for the pic's!

 

The last time Explorer had its propeller replaced they also replaced 3 of their deck officers!

gc

[BillB48]

On other ships of this class if there is an issue with the center fixed pod they have removed the blades until such time they can make repairs to the pod... usually when the ship goes into drydock. Removing the blades not only reduces drag, but also prevents auto rotation of the pod while the ship is underway possibly aggravating the original problem. Loss of use of the center pod just trims the top speed a tad, the ship can still do close to 20 knots.