Posted on 07/19/2006 7:49:50 PM PDT by MindBender26
There is a strong but previously undisclosed undercurrent running through the Coast Guard’s investigation of yesterday’s cruise ship accident that left 92 passengers seriously injured, two of them critically. The questions are being whispered, but there is no denying them; “Was this a terrorist attempt to sink the ship?”
This much is known. The 3000 passenger 22-knot floating hotel "Crown Princess" was 11 miles south of Port Canaveral, heading out on a Western Caribbean cruise when suddenly, everything turned topsy-turvy. According to passengers, the ship listed somewhere between 20 and 40 degrees as the vessel made a violent and unnecessary turn to the left.
I’ll leave the passengers descriptions of down becoming up, merchandise sliding earthquake-like off shelves and people flying everywhere with a force that was so strong the water cascaded out of the ship’s four swimming pools to other accounts.
Here is the understory.
So far there is absolutely no explanation of why the ship executed the vicious turn to port and everything not tied down slipped to starboard. It had been to sea before, recently docking in Florida on a trip down from New York. The weather was fine, the sea calm and clear and no other vessels in the area. They can find no mechanical problem…. and ships weighting 226,000,000 pounds don’t just turn like that by accident.
The current question then is; was it attempted sabotage?
Two factors are on everyone in the federal law enforcement and news media fields minds tonight. These ultra modern cruise ships (the ship was launched in 2003) are nothing more than top heavy, barely seaworthy floating Miami Beach-like art deco hotels. Many experienced seamen think they are an accident waiting to happen with their huge sail-like sides ready to catch a freak wind or wave and little natural stability. More than one marine architect thinks it’s just a matter of time until one capsizes.
Add to that the composition of the crews. Cruise lines “rent” their ship’s crews. The dining room staff, from waiters and busboys to the overly gracious matre-d are supplied from one agency, the cabin stewards from another, while another company supplies the deck department, (the traditional “sailors.”)
On one ship I was on last year, the only direct employees of the cruise line were the Master, the Chief Engineer, the Purser (who is really a nautical hotel manager) and the Social Director with the bad toupee. Everyone else, from head pastry chef to hull painter to helmsman were all “rented” from a Ships Chandler (supplier) service.
Remember that word; “helmsman.” He’s the one who steers the ship. Too fast a turn and perhaps a huge ship turns over and becomes huge permanent underwater monument to wretched excess.
Many of these rented crews, especially the “sailors” are from Indonesia. Indonesia has a huge and increasingly violent and fundamentalist Moslem population.
The questions being asked tonight, as I said, quietly, here in Florida are, was there a radical Moslem at the wheel and did he try to capsize the Crown Princess and thereby take 3000 infidels to the bottom with her?
Think about the Moslem mind. 3000 scantily clad, alcohol drinking, pork eating Christians and Jews drowned in a flash. What a great way to guarantee a madly hyper-focused helmsman his 76 virgins! No need to get a shoe bomb on a Trans-Atlantic airplane. Just take a hard left and they’re all dead, in time and in range of the cameras for the evening news.
(We all hope) It will probably turn out to not be the case, but in the Islam’s war on America, stranger tales have turned out to be true.
What's the metacentric height on one of those?
Now there's a blast from the past.
Next you'll mention "Lost in the hurntgen forest", or more recently "TLBshow".
The largest ship I have captained is a 32 footer cabin cruiser. With it's twin turbo diesels and twin stainless steel shafts and props, I could give her full speed full port and it still was slow to turn. Radical abrupt turns can happen in speed and sport boats, but not on cruise ships of this size.
So no, it didn't happen in the manner offered.
> So no, it didn't happen in the manner offered.
Perhaps, but something sent 92 people to the hospital.
Think it's possible that a control system failure made the rudder go hard over?
>Think it's possible that a control system failure made the rudder go hard over?
Hope so, but everything worked fine all way back to port and they can find no problems now.
The possible cause being bandied about is similar to 'Uncoordinated Turns' which happen in an aircraft when the rudder and ailerons are turned in 'opposing directions' for lack of a better term. they think the thrusters/stabilizers and rudders moved in opposite turn directions.
That's what I would have guessed.
Obviously SOMETHING serious happened, if the ship turned on a dime, all the water in the swimming pools slopped out, and that many people were thrown around and badly hurt. Either sabotage or an accident.
Or an uncharted shoal or incompetent navigator, maybe, if they were approaching the Bahamas.
11 miles off FL coast.
Deep water, then.
I don't claim the slighest expertise on that. The cruise line is blaming it on a massive steering failure, so maybe something made the rudders, thrusters, and everything else suddenly kick in.
The idea that it was a terrorist attack blows my mind, but everything since 9/11, including a smidgeon of coffee creamer on the counter in the coffee bar at the office, has been attributed to terrorists, at least temporarily.
The WESH story is good, but read between lines. In this case was no commanded turn. Why did ship turn / list as it did in this case?
Yes.
Even in rudder hard over it would still take several football fields to turn.
These ships have redundent steering systems. For a rudder to go hard over like that, a steering rod would have to snap, or the rudder post would have to fail. I investigated a 36 inch rudder post failure on a super tanker once. But, on a new vessel, I don't think that was the issue. These vessels have gyro-stablizers, stabilizer fins, and I believe quick ballast water movement to provide passengers with a puke free enviornment. My best guess at this point is that the stabilizers may have malfunctioned, not the steering system.
That's interesting, I'd like to read it when it done. plz ping me.
Interesting theory.
Perhaps a whale was surfacing under the ship and nearly knocked it over. (My own fanciful take--for entertainment purposes, only.)
It's a mystery, for sure.
I think the folks who insure these ships would agree with you... Also, almost the same thing happened a few months ago when a family member and friends went on a cruise out of the same port. The ship engines stopped and the ship listed wildly to one side. Up until that time, no one in that group had ever heard of such a thing...
I think the folks who insure these ships would agree with you... Also, almost the same thing happened a few months ago when a family member and friends went on a cruise out of the same port. The ship engines stopped and the ship listed wildly to one side. Up until that time, no one in that group had ever heard of such a thing...
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