Originally Posted by
Badenoch
The thread on Cruise Critic is filled with similarly overwrought hysteria. No doubt this event had the potential to be serious but no one died, most survived unharmed, an elderly couple suffered serious but not life-threatening injuries, a handful of others have bumps and bruises. Everyone now has an exciting story to tell particularly those passengers choppered off in high winds and driving rain.
Hurtigruten and others actually delayed sailings to avoid the storm in the Hustadvika off the coast between Molde and Kristiansund due to the weather advisories. The Viking Sky was in no danger from the storm itself, though there were undoubtedly those who were discomforted by the ship’s motion.
But when the four engines quit the ship lost headway. A large wave broke a large window and door in a restaurant and water flooded in. Some passengers and furniture were moved as far as thirty feet, there was a significant quantity (albeit not dangerous, but certainly frightening for passengers) of water in the restaurant. The ship was listing 20 degrees, making lifeboat deployment risky at best. Furnishings and passengers were moving by tens of feet in some areas of the ship. 20 people were injured - one is in critical condition, eight are still in hospital.
"Everything was broken: plates, glasses, furniture," the crew member said, describing scenes in the ship's restaurants and lounges. He said he saw a heavy grand piano go flying upside down inside a lounge. The crew member requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
When the ship lost headway, it was subject to vagaries of winds and current. At the point anchor was able to be dropped and got a hold on the bottom, the ship was approximately 100 meters from a rock shoal. A Norwegian fishing vessel Captain and others say this was a pretty close call - 100 meters and the ship would have been at risk of foundering on the reef.
One of the two Pilots aboard said
The Norwegian pilot on the cruise ship carrying more than 1,300 people that was caught in a hefty storm off the coast of Norway said Tuesday the situation worsened when engine problems appeared.
Inge Lockert told the Vesteraalen newspaper that “everything went as it should until we got engine problems.”
“It was a very big team effort” he told the daily. “When we got the engine running again, we realized we were going to save ourselves.”
Passengers were told they’d be evacuated, but some passengers waited hours at temporary muster areas before being evacuated. Passengers who were evacuated had to muster at a small deck area on a high deck, where 479 passengers were placed one or two at a time into slings, then winched up to the helicopter door in high winds - most of them, at night. No problem for trained armed forces parajumpers and the like, but I suspect for the average sexa- or septuagenarian, damned scary at best.
Norwegian officials said Monday they have opened an investigation into why a cruise ship carrying more than 1,300 people set sail despite storm warnings, forcing a major evacuation.
Hospital officials have said one person is in critical condition, and eight others are still hospitalized after the Viking Sky got into trouble off the Norwegian coast on Saturday. Authorities launched a daring rescue operation, taking 479 passengers off the ship by helicopter.
Dag S. Liseth of Norway's Accident Investigations Board said "the high risk which the ship, its passengers and crew were exposed to made us decide to investigate the incident."
This wasn’t a Disney ride, this was real, with untrained inexperienced passengers with little information and no ability to weigh the actual risk. Even the Pilot believed they were at serious risk. I’d believe some were traumatized, though “years of PTSD” is probably overblown.
Yngve Skovly of the police in Moere and Romsdal district where Molde sits, says that there is no suspicion of a criminal offense but police have opened an investigation to find out why the ship had engine problems. That probe would be part of the one by the Accident Investigations Board.
The engines out troubles I experienced in September were vastly different. We were in sheltered Buzzards Bay, and soon we were surrounded by vessels - a large catamaran to remove passengers if necessary, five Coast Guard vessels, tugs, etc. Anchor was successfully dropped in relatively shallow waters, there was minimal wind, flat calm sea conditions. Absolutely no sweat at all. (It could have been very different if our engines had stopped while in a storm we transited between Greenland and Labrador, but fortunately that’s not where it happened.)
(My perspective: 50~60 cruises on mostly smaller vessels ranging from12-30 pax and crew to 450, master diver with 60 years of diving wrecks, sharks, Vietnam veteran who experienced mortar and other attacks. Losing all power on a small cruise ship last year, a number of storms at sea, one hurricane force.)