Posted on 11/09/2010 9:16:09 AM PST by pabianice
Breaking... Carnival Lines ship adrift off Mexico; 4500 on board; USCG and USN send help... one aircraft carrier involved...
Quote:
No AC, No hot food???
At this time of year, the horrors???
Buck it up and live like it was your last minute.
The worst part is:
If tug boats are going to push/pull/tow it, they have
probably disallowed skeet shooting off the side of the ship.
I did not know they owned Holland..I have heard that is a great line
“Full refund” - sounds like they’re actually doing the honorable thing.
I would think that if they can find a big-enough drydock, it would be a lot cheaper to cut a large hold in the side of the hull, swap-out the engines, and weld it back together than it would be to build a new ship.
I did some work for Royal Carib’s office long ago, and they took me for a tour of the engine room on one of those.
(I don’t remember which ship it was, but it was docked there at the time.)
I couldn’t believe the size of those engines - they were massive. I was impressed by their entire operation.
Turn it into a casino.
They'll be fine as long as they stay off the poop deck...
Every ship has emergency generators installed away from the main engine room. These are usuallly smaller generators that are used to supply emergeny lighting, power for air compressors (Compressed air is used to start the generators and large main engines), one SW cooling pump, one FW cooling pump - those things needed to get the electric plant up and running again. They usually also provide power to at least one fire pump and one bilge pump. Emergency generators can usually be “fed-back” or connected to the main electric bus.
My guess is that the fire destroyed the electric switch board and/or melted most of the wiring so none of the pumps/motors can be started. You have to figure most - if not all - of the engine department was fighting the fire and are probably exhausted. They would be fighting the fire since they would know the engine room best.
If they are being towed 90 miles to port, they most likely are not worried about toilets. They are most worried about sea worthiness. A lot of ships are built with cheap butterfly valves now adays. I wonder if the heat could have destroyed any of the rubber valve seats or melted gaskets on the plate coolers and causing water to enter some how. Not to mention needing to get rid of the water they used to put the fire out (unless they used the CO2 flooding system).
Whatever the cause, by putting the fire out, they saved a lot of lives and that needs to be remembered.
Also, without being on scene it it hard to tell what happened. Just a slightly educated guess.
IMO, first mistake was going on Carnival; second mistake was going to Mexico!
RCCL would be my recommendation.
postscript...never book an inside cabin...get a cabin with a balcony.
Okay it's. Understood I saying were you what.
Yep...not surprised. We were on the biggest boat, Oasis of the Seas last April, and it was outstanding. Would definiytely recommend.
That makes two of us.
The ship entered service on 2 July 2008.”
Less than 2 1/2 years service?
Not sounding right.
Cannot imagine that whatever damage this ship suffered, it cannot be repaired.
Might take awhile, but if it ‘isn’t repairable’, how is the ship still floating?
Cunard Line,
Holland America Line, “”
Had no idea they owned these lines.
Well, it is possible that the engines themselves are damaged beyond repair. Those puppies are huge and down in the bowels of the ship. The company may have decided that trying to replace the engines was more costly than simply writing-off the ship as a loss.
The question is whether or not it is economicaly feasible to do so. A real bad fire will melt all the wiring, destroy gaskets, melt automation controls, ect. Not to mention damage caused by the water used to put out the fire.
Most likely cause, without actually knowing, is that the fire was started by a broken fuel line. I've seen the results of a fuel line breaking and spraying fuel on a hot turbo charger. Not pretty.
With that many people on a ship, they are lucky no one died.
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