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WHOOPS!!! Ship Aground!


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I'm interested in what the root cause ends up being.  They generally inch toward the pier so quickly that I just don't understand the speed with which they approached.  Even if currents were crazy (and yes, that's one of the things harbor pilots should help account for) the rate at which they were approaching is just bizarre to me.  

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if it was current or winds etc., people wonder why RCCL skips out on Coco Cay and other tender ports periodically, I agree with @monorailmedic, the speed is just why off, what did they do, bring in the junior, junior assistant (Janitor) harbor pilot? I know Roatan is a small island with little or no infrastructure, but come on? Tug boat anyone....

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6 minutes ago, Joe01 said:

What an idiotic Captain. A ship should never travel that fast near a dock. He would be fired if it were Royal.

I'm quite confident all cruise lines have roughly the same tolerance for running a ship into a pier, which probably involves logic like, "If you ran into something causing significant damage, and you could have reasonably avoided running into it, you're done here."

We'll see what the investigation finds.  For me too it is hard to imagine someone didn't screw up big time, as the ship should have been moving so much more slowly while so much farther away that there'd have been ample time to correct even a mechanical issue.

All of this in mind, I don't have an unlimited tonnage master's licence and haven't spoken to anyone there, so it's all speculative.

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Just now, henrysea13 said:

nope highly doubtful it was the captain mostly likely the harbor pilot msc has way to much experience to be at fault

One could say the same for harbor pilots, they need years (usually decades) with an unlimited tonnage master's licence (which also takes years, if not decades just to acquire).  This will be an interesting one to watch play out.

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The Captain is always responsible for his ship. There are very few exceptions where the pilot has complete control of a vessel like in Panama Canal. The Captain works closely with the harbor pilot but can override the harbor pilot if he feels his vessel is jeopardy. While the harbor pilot knows the harbor, the Captain knows how to steer the ship including angle, speed, etc. 

Now there are a few crazy things I see in the video. There is no one on the pier to help with lines, the anchor seems to be down in the water and dragging at the surface (it doesn't seem to be dragging at the ground).  Mechanical failure? That others have said there should have been ways to fix a mechanical failure before it got to this point.

 

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I am quite sure we can chalk this up to someones poor judgement there have been fortunately few examples of this fortunately no one appears to have been injured the Concordia is an example of poor judgement by a very experienced individual unfortunately some times the oops factor just wins out over dum luck or mega experience

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1 hour ago, monorailmedic said:

This will be an interesting one to watch play out.

I'm really interested to see how it plays out if that ship isn't sea worthy? How will all those people get back? MSC will have to fork over a whole lot of $ to fly them all back to wherever.

We need a @twangster analysis here ?

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1 hour ago, melski94 said:

The Captain is always responsible for his ship. There are very few exceptions where the pilot has complete control of a vessel like in Panama Canal. The Captain works closely with the harbor pilot but can override the harbor pilot if he feels his vessel is jeopardy. While the harbor pilot knows the harbor, the Captain knows how to steer the ship including angle, speed, etc.

This is my understanding as well.  I asked Anthem's Captain this question and he said that Captains are always responsible for the ship and in command of the ship.  The local pilot may provide input and warn of currents or winds but there are very few ports in the world where the pilot assumes command of a vessel.

33 minutes ago, Lovetocruise2002 said:

I'm really interested to see how it plays out if that ship isn't sea worthy? How will all those people get back? MSC will have to fork over a whole lot of $ to fly them all back to wherever.

We need a @twangster analysis here ?

Time may or may not tell.  Honduras may not have an official inquiry board or make findings of any investigation public like the NTSB and/or Coast Guard would here in the US.   Another question would be liability.  Millions of dollars in damage to the pier plus the loss of income from potentially months of cancelled calls by many cruise lines.  The ship is in Honduran waters so legally I think they can seize it until an understanding is negotiated.   If they fled the country after such an incident I imagine there would be a lot of repercussions from international marine organizations.  

The ship will need to be inspected before sailing for sure.  If I were a passenger I'd be asking to fly home, not what time are we leaving port.  That kind of fatigue to a critical area of the ship near the water line could be pretty significant. 

I'm also concerned about passengers on board.  She was going a pretty good clip and came to a halt pretty quickly.  Passengers were likely thrown to the floor.  Try walking in a motorhome at 5 mph when the driver brakes hard.  You likely won't be standing.

I also noted the lack of any warning signal or ship whistle.  Very odd.

The angle of approach seems off as well.  When I sailed Liberty into that port last month I don't recall approaching that steeply towards the pier.  After they wipe out the anchor point on the pier the bow thrusters are working as is the main aft propulsion trying to reverse.  That rules out complete loss of control.  There is a lot of momentum in something this big and they should have started slowing long before.  The anchor was a nice idea but depending on the bottom may have been of little help and possibly damaged a lot of the sea floor.  That area has a lot of coral on the other side of the pier.  No doubt that damage will be added to the pier damage when Honduras presents its bill to MSC.

Liberty docked in Costa Maya with high winds pushing us directly into the pier and we inched our way towards the pier and it took for ever, but this is why.

Would be interested in any on board video to hear if the bridge warned the passengers to brace for impact.

 

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At cruise law news a user claims to be on it:

http://www.cruiselawnews.com/2018/04/articles/collisions/msc-armonia-crashes-into-dock-in-roatan/

lloyd allen - April 10, 2018 3:02 PM

im on the boat at the moment and the speed it came in was way too fast.just before the crash a guy came over the tannoy screaming something over and over.were stayimg in room 9003 which is just below bridge so we had a front row seat.im reluctant to carey on as last night was a terrible rougb ride and now this basic area give s me no confidence.

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I found this video that shows the damage from a different angle just after the impact and the ship being reversed off the sand. 

Looks like a significant dent/hole in the ship by the hole (don't know the technical term!) where the anchor retracts into. 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/video/other/cruise-ship-rams-dock-at-honduras-roatan-island/vi-AAvKlfj

 

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Apparently guests were disembarked for tours as usual, damage to the ship is minimal and port authorities expect her to leave port about 2am once necessary repairs have been completed and she's expected to arrive in Belize, her next scheduled port, on time. 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/travel/cruises/msc-cruise-ship-crashes-port-12341913

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2 minutes ago, hayley_bopp said:

Apparently guests were disembarked for tours as usual, damage to the ship is minimal and port authorities expect her to leave port about 2am once necessary repairs have been completed and she's expected to arrive in Belize, her next scheduled port, on time. 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/travel/cruises/msc-cruise-ship-crashes-port-12341913

If I were a passenger on that ship, I would be so nervous to get back on board.  I don't know if I could do it...

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1 hour ago, Boston Babe said:

Does anyone know if they took the passengers off? How many hotels would there be in Honduras? I haven't seen an update.

Honduras has plenty of hotels.


Roatan...I mean, they have a decent number of accommodations, but that's a LOT of people to house on top of the normal number of tourists in Roatan at any given time. Good thing it appears that this wasn't necessary.

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For some perspective, here are some photos I took about a month ago while on Liberty.

5ace21d633018_LibertyFeb2018Roatan-1.jpg.2f53ff7fbdfc28a56cd1a9954a503324.jpg

5ace21dd5125f_LibertyFeb2018Roatan-2.jpg.2a435ab4fd541fc3c622c52a7d03662a.jpg

It appears the section from the orange cones and all to the right was lost.

5ace21e60b4fb_LibertyFeb2018Roatan-3.jpg.de4cad9218a13a2a1ac6d18ebcdaf00b.jpg

The less dramatic approach that Liberty took approaching the pier has us slowly inching closer while parallel to the pier.

5ace21ed63bc1_LibertyFeb2018Roatan-4.jpg.9b986c64bae6f270f8e58038ed1318c2.jpg

Looking down the pier it appears there are some lines to the end of the pier that was lost.  I wonder if ships like Liberty can modify and get away without the lines to the end of the pier since it seems they also have lines to the point near the shore well off the pier.

5ace21f53ac19_LibertyFeb2018Roatan-5.jpg.5258ec5b154af15e1742b7e9c21bfaf7.jpg

Cropping this photo a bit for more detail:

5ace238cb3aa0_LibertyFeb2018Roatan-6.jpg.7af66b026498fefaa3a7d09394e6c979.jpg

 

 

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I'm wondering what will happen to the other cruise ships that are supposed to be going there. suspect change of itinerary till the pier is fixed. I'm just glad for those passengers that they can continue on their cruise. what a nightmare trying to get out of Honduras back to the States with 1600 people!

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9 minutes ago, Boston Babe said:

I'm wondering what will happen to the other cruise ships that are supposed to be going there. suspect change of itinerary till the pier is fixed. I'm just glad for those passengers that they can continue on their cruise. what a nightmare trying to get out of Honduras back to the States with 1600 people!

The easiest (and cheapest) way would be to charter a larger aircraft and do a few trips to the arrival port. No way you could get them all out reasonably on scheduled flights, even out of Tegucigalpa.

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23 minutes ago, Boston Babe said:

I'm wondering what will happen to the other cruise ships that are supposed to be going there. suspect change of itinerary till the pier is fixed. I'm just glad for those passengers that they can continue on their cruise. what a nightmare trying to get out of Honduras back to the States with 1600 people!

It was one of the articles posted that said this ship originated and was based out of Cuba. So I'm assuming they would have to get everyone back there, not to the US. Also the article stated that the ship was continuing on with it's itinerary, next stop was Belize, I think the dock took the blunt of the damage, even though they said they made repairs to the ships also.

Definitely something you would want to keep an eye on if you were going to sail on her though...

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18 minutes ago, tiny260 said:

next stop was Belize, I think the dock took the blunt of the damage, even though they said they made repairs to the ships also.

I think so too.  I also just heard heading to Belize. Weird that you don't hear on Social Media from anyone on board and what the passengers were eventually told.  Nice story to tell the Grandkids!  Just glad everyone on ship and shore were not hurt.  

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