Pratique

Your experience may vary but usually if we pick up the cups from one of the tables they set up on boarding day they let us choose any cup so you can pick the color you want. At the bars they just hand one to you.

Heading to the turning basin now.

Victory Casino going out first.

We are at the dock behind Wonder.

We have stopped in the channel.

If anyone is interested in watching Symphony arrive at Port Canaveral today on the live cam, we are arriving early for a medical evacuation. We will be bumping the dock for the transfer and then turning the ship around to dock for the day.

Yes correct. Maybe a light sweater if the air conditioning is too strong.

Risotto or linguine usually satisfy me if I’m getting something without meat. I think shirt and shoes are all anyone expects for lunch. And a lanyard as a fashion accessory.

Ha, yes. Well, the bypass was most definitely removed after we completed testing (and the removal was tested too). I hated bypassing safeties unless it was part of the test, so we had to redesign some of the tests to accommodate this.

The electricians at Disney "yelled" at us for over-exercising the breakers. We had computer controlled under-voltage relays that would trip the high voltage breakers during an emergency stop. During testing we performed hundreds of emergency stops and we wore out the breakers. Which were expensive to replace. So after we tested the relays, we bypassed them to prevent over-exercising the breakers.

To me it is a question of thoroughness being raised by Maersk. If there was a problem of any kind, there should be adequate measures taken to ensure it (and anything else) had been resolved before setting sail, even if it had nothing to do with the incident. Maybe the fuel issue was resolved, but we (and they) don't know yet. And if it wasn't, then that opens a whole can of worms.

A new report in the Baltimore Sun quotes the chief engineer for Maersk as saying he would be satisfied to set sail if the in-port blackout due to human error had been adequately checked out, but he was still uncertain that the low fuel pressure issue had been sufficiently resolved. Although the NTSB report said the two events (in port and voyage) were mechanically distinct, the Maersk engineer said the pilots should have been told about the initial blackout, which would have raised questions about the seaworthiness of the ship in their minds. The Sun also quoted a marine engineer with NTSB investigation experience who said the design of the power management system might be an underlying cause and needs to be further investigated.

Fair enough, there are other perspectives out there some dependent on the investigation. It’s still early in the investigation.

Yes, that’s reasonable and I’m not expecting 100% of anything. I’m reading elsewhere from people claiming to be cargo ship captains or engineers saying that the Dali should not have left port that day or at least not without taking additional precautions. So there’s no consensus that this was only a bridge problem or that nothing can be done to improve shipboard safety.

I’m a patent attorney so I know all this, but thanks nonetheless. I was just responding to an earlier question. Sorry for the redundant response..

I get it. I'm just not satisfied to be content with the status quo. Maybe others are. I think we can do better if we want to. Maybe I'm a dreamer. This bridge collapse should be a wake up call. But if nothing changes, then it will probably happen again. There are companies who have profited from being innovative and delivering a higher demand product or service. Maybe Amazon is an example? I read about shippers who are frustrated with having their cargoes kicked off of the ship to make way for more profitable loads. So there are plenty of folks who would be interested in seeing some good competition, maybe driving innovation through more efficient ships that can reach more ports. Just spit balling because when I'm a cynic I tend to just sit in a rut. EDIT to say "duh" Disney spends tons of money for things that may never be needed (amusement safety wise) and the competitors (smaller amusement parks) don't, and it has paid off in spades IMHO. But I get that international shipping is a different beast.

You mean mandatory change to the ships. I'm guessing voluntary change is asking too much.

I am reading expert commentary to the contrary, that a ship with that much mass moving at that speed would overcome anything put in its way. So not sure we can say for sure. Obviously more needs to be done. How to prioritize is a hard problem.

Well the ship struck the bridge, not the other way around. The ever larger ships are driving the need to improve the bridges. So the taxpayers should pay to accommodate the shipping industry? Maybe it's all just baked into the economy one way or another. No such thing as a free ride. This is true of the railroads too. They are trying to operate trains a mile long with one engineer on board, alone, to save money. What could possibly go wrong?

Good points, all. I obviously don't have specific technical answers but we know it will cost $$$. That's what it all comes down to. Instead, we now have the cost of replacing a bridge that should never have been struck in the first place. So money here or money there, eventually the costs will be borne by someone. Should it be the shipping industry? We are building new bridges to accommodate them after all. Today the USCG testified to Congress that they will probably do something about marine traffic at the at risk bridges before the final NTSB report comes out. Maybe add more tugs, maybe something else. So it took this to get their attention. Unfortunate since it could have been foreseen.

These are of course pie in the sky and you may have some good counterarguments. One is simply to use tug boats under the (now extinct) bridge for vessels that cannot conn below 8 knots. Is it 100% perfect? No. It is cost effective? No. Is it overkill? Yes. But if one of the tugs had gotten back to the Dali in time, maybe crisis averted. Knowing the existing deficiencies of the bridge, this is something that should appear on the hazard matrix. If it did, then everyone was just playing the odds. Not unreasonable to do, but still a consideration. Another is looking at the admittedly simple electrical schematics in the report and thinking that there should be a way to prevent the propulsion engine and rudder from shutting down so quickly during an electrical outage, given the relatively involved restart process. I don't have a specific solution, but I'm sure that if there is a will there is a way. Again, probably overkill for most situations, but I'm not convinced that it is impractical to do or in conflict with existing requirements. I'm just thinking outside of the box so to speak. I guess I really just don't like hearing "it isn't necessary" because I've never been successful using that argument against anyone else and I was never trained to think that way either. Also, although I left Disney long ago, some of my software continues to run to this day and thankfully no major incidents have happened with it because we were very risk adverse.

I was thinking more along the lines of SOLAS-type things, but point taken about the compartments. I was also thinking about another anecdote for risk analysis, when I once went to Tokyo DisneySea for a design review with my Japanese counterparts. One thing we had been doing for decades in the U.S. was "idiot proofing" the systems as much as possible. The running joke was that you can't outsmart an idiot, but we had developed many time-tested and effective mitigation strategies that the Japanese team had not implemented. Some simple mistakes such as pushing a button at the wrong time would cause bad things to happen under their design. When we brought it up, they seemed offended at the suggestion that their highly trained and disciplined ride operators would ever make a mistake. I shrugged my shoulders (mentally) and then said there could also be an equipment failure, such as a push button shorting closed at the wrong time. They scoffed at that and said they had acquired the best equipment money could buy with a mean time between failure of 20 years. They had some mitigation but it was in downstream control and would not have prevented some bad things from happening. I said, well if it could fail in 20 years it could also fail tomorrow. They didn't like hearing that either. Also, they were using the equipment incorrectly. They bought dual contact switches and were using them to mitigate against one contact failing to close but had not considered the consequences of having one contact weld closed. Again, that would cause bad things to happen. We told them to enter a fail safe state when either contact failed to open or close. They didn't like that idea either. I was scratching my head wondering why they were resisting our recommendations, most of which could be implemented in software, until I realized the reason was that their hazard analysis didn't call for any of it. They had (incorrectly in my opinion) overestimated the reliability of their employees and equipment. When I read the admittedly brief NTSB report about the Dali I can't help thinking about some pretty simple ways the collision could have been avoided if they had been more risk adverse, even though the risk analysis may not have called for any of it. Maybe a new bridge design is all we will ever get out of this incident, but maybe some smart folks will find new ways to mitigate against power failures on board in a more robust way. Just my hope, is all.

Royal Caribbean owns many patents with Nick's name listed as an inventor. Such as this one. So likely he assigned away all of his rights to them.