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Former cruise ship Chief Engineer
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chengkp75's Achievements
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While the Captain has the "overriding authority" to make these decisions at the time, if it is found that they disregarded an imminent danger to people who turn out not to be terrorists, he and the cruise line could be sued under the "Death on High Seas Act", among other maritime laws.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, ace, but do you see underwater when you look out the windows in the Golden Lion? No? Then how does an area about 15-20 feet above the ship flood? Sure it can. Just because it is stopped, doesn't mean the Captain has turned off the ignition switch. The azipods are on line, the thrusters will be on line, and the azipods can create even more wake to propel a boat away than the thrusters. As soon as the boat starts to move, keep the ship dancing away. But, again, 500 lbs of "explosives" depends a whole lot on what type of explosive it is, and how it is packaged, and how it is presented to the target. And, you would be wrong here again. A lot of "pirate" or "terrorist" boats around the world are capable of doing 25 knots or better. Sure, attacking a moving ship is harder, but it has been done, and can be done. And, the use of an LRAD at 20 meters can drop a person to their knees, vomiting and incoherent.
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And the standard for convoys during that war was for merchant ships to never stop to seek out survivors from sunk ships, leaving that to escorts. It's called triage, never an easy thing, but something first responders and medical professionals are trained in. Or, as Spock would say, "the needs of the many outweighs the needs of the few".
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Which just goes to show how uninformed about maritime issues you are. Naval vessels today do not have armor plated hulls. They are mild steel hulls, just like cruise ships and other merchant ships. Oh, you mean the boat that looks damaged or sinking that can suddenly accelerate to 60 miles per hour and strike the ship? How do you disguise a cigarette racing boat as a sinking wreck? Do you know how bow thrusters work? They push enough water away from the ship to move the thousands of tons of ship away from a dock. If directed at a small boat, it typically will swamp or sink that boat. And, besides, just exploding something alongside a ship does not guarantee that you would seriously damage the ship, let alone blow a hole in her. That requires either a vast amount of explosive, or a shaped charge pressed against the hull, or some form of damping to direct the explosive force towards the ship, and not in all directions. And, even if the ship is stopped, the Captain will have the ability to steer and use thrusters, to keep the damaged boat away from his ship. Or do you think the Captain is so incompetent or uncaring that he would just let the boat drift closer and closer, without taking the basic precautions that sent the rescue boat out to the refugees in the first place? Always amusing, and always uninformed, as usual, ace.
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Actually, it is not. The requirement is for all ships to provide aid to persons in distress, provided the Captain does not place his ship, crew, passengers, cargo, or the environment in undue danger. This is why typically, the USCG will, when a ship reports a floating wreck with a bunch of Cuban refugees onboard, if the craft is in no danger of sinking, the USCG will instruct the vessel to merely stay on location with the "boat" until a cutter can arrive. It is the ship's Captain's decision whether to take the people onboard his ship or not.
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And ace, shaking my head that you've resurrected this fear of using rescue as a terrorist tactic. In case you haven't noticed, ships have evolved quite a bit since the heyday of fire ships. And, before you bring up possible explosives, remember the USS Cole, which was damaged similarly as you think, and which had a huge hole blown in the side, but guess what, it never sank. Besides, the ship never lets the refugee boat or liferaft, or whatever, alongside the ship. The ship sends the rescue boat, or a lifeboat, to the persons needing assistance, and then transfer them from their craft to the rescue/lifeboat one at a time, not allowing anything to be carried over.
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chengkp75 started following Getaway arriving late tommorrow?? , Piracy and Other Threat Protection , Alaska cruises with no stops in Canada and 3 others
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USCG has armed "Sea Marshals" that randomly board ships inbound and outbound from US ports, the cruise ships getting more attention than others. This has been going on since 9/11, but is still in practice. The response may be armed RHIB boats as shown in photos above, or it may be armed service members onboard the ship. Typically, they will have a couple of personnel on the bridge, a couple in the steering gear room (or azipod space (not in the pod)), and a couple in the Engine Control Room. Sometimes armed with just sidearms, sometimes with long guns. Interesting anecdote, when in Hawaii, our Security Officer turned away an armed (long gun), in uniform, USCG seaman from boarding the Pride of Aloha because he had left his ID back at base. He argued about it, but his superior agreed with Security and sent the man back down into the boat. He mentioned to Security that it wasn't planned that way, but if Security had let the man onboard, he would have cited the ship for an ISPS (International Ship and Port Security) Code violation.
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Alaska cruises with no stops in Canada
chengkp75 replied to Emigrator's topic in Ask a Cruise Question
No, its not a fee. Foreign flag ships must have a foreign port call. US flag ships can cruise to US ports without a foreign port call. What the savings for the foreign ships is; US taxes (they pay none), labor costs (they pay well below US minimum wage, with no social security payroll tax), inspection fees (they don't have to pay for USCG inspections, nor have as many, or any, compared to US flag ships), insurance (most foreign seafarers have minimal insurance coverage (and none while off the ship), as opposed to US seafarers, customs duty (all ship's supplies brought into the US from overseas that end up on the ship are brought in with no customs duty, since it is merely in transit from a foreign country to a foreign ship, while US ships have to pay duty for the same parts and supplies if they are manufactured overseas). However, smaller cruise ships will charge a higher fare, even if foreign flag, because they can not generate the "economies of scale" that large ships get. As a very small example, a cruise ship that carries 3000 passengers only has one Captain, drawing $150k/year. But, 5 ships carrying 600 pax, need 5 Captains drawing $150k/year. And, that Captain's salary on the larger ship is spread over 3000 passengers, while the smaller ship Captain's salary, while the same amount, is spread out over only 600 passengers. -
Probably the larger reason you get the respiratory infection (since the HVAC units have filters already), is that the dry air conditioned air dries out your nasal mucus membranes, and these are the first and best line of defence against respiratory infections. Try using a saline nasal spray daily.
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Just so you know, there is no such thing as "cruise compliant". No cruise line certifies anything as being "compliant" with either the law or their rules.
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Not sure I follow all the gobbledygook that the OP is saying, but will try to explain how things happen. First, duty free can be open as soon as the vessel is outside the harbor limits, since the ship itself is foreign territory. And, duty free just means that no duty was paid to import the goods into the US, by the seller, so they can pass the savings on to the customer. The customer still has to pay any duty required when bringing the goods back into the US (or other country). The casino will open when 12 miles offshore. The state of Florida has a 6% sales tax, while Miami-Dade county assesses an additional 1%. This is levied on each purchase, based on the "list" price of the purchase (in your case, each drink). This tax is levied anytime the ship is within 3 nm of land in Florida. Typically, the bridge notifies the purser's office whenever the ship crosses the 3 mile or 12 mile limit, and the POS registers are reprogrammed to start or stop charging tax. I don't believe you were being charged a flat tax of $2/drink, I believe you misunderstood that even with a "free drink package", you still need to pay the 20% gratuity charge per day.
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I suspect that one diesel engine was down, and it just required an amount of time to repair. Sometimes repairs take more than a day to complete, and crews are no longer allowed to work round the clock, unless the safety of the ship is involved.
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If an azipod was down, which would have required a tug escort all the way from the Ambrose sea buoy, then the use of two tugs to dock would be expected, but I didn't hear about a full tug escort, so I don't think this is the case. Docking at the Manhattan Cruise Terminal, for the large ships, is typically scheduled around times of slack water, and the unusually late arrival likely meant the tide and current were running together to make the turn into the berth very difficult. Remember that a perfectly working Carnival ship rammed the pier a few years back. The turn from the Hudson into the berth at MCT is historically difficult, even with azipods and thrusters, as the current the ship is fighting while turning, suddenly goes to zero as the bow becomes shielded by the pier structure.
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Yes, it is an incentive program, in the sense that it incentivizes the crew to perform well in order to earn their full compensation. Tipping in a restaurant on land is also an incentive program. The second reason that the DSC model is used by cruise lines (after being able to cut the DSC out of the advertised fare) is so that the DSC is used as both the carrot and the stick to force the crew into a "team approach" to guest service, because any one crew member who causes DSC to be adjusted affects every DSC crew member's paycheck. It is one of the poorest forms of leadership and team building around, but given that the cruise lines do not invest in any leadership training for first and second line supervisors, it overcomes the shortcomings of those supervisors, transferring the leadership requirement to the front line workers themselves. I worked for NCL, and as senior ship management, so I do know how the DSC is set up. It was discussed nearly every week in the shipboard management revenue meeting.
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And, in most cases, to get more speed and keep the power (and fuel) down, you need to go longer. Look at the QM2 (86 Mw of propulsion power to move 80k tons displacement (actual weight) at 30 knots) compared to the SS United States (180 Mw of propulsion power to move 47k tons displacement at 36 knots). The SSUS was pushing way above her "hull speed" at 36 knots, which is why it took so much more horsepower to move a smaller ship than QM2 does. Lots of people think that LNG is some wonder fuel that answers all the problems of marine fuel. However, methane (which is what LNG is) when released through what is known as "methane slip" (or the amount of methane lost due to leakage, spills, and incomplete combustion to the atmosphere) is over 80 times the greenhouse gas compared to CO2 over a 20 year span, and over 20 times the effect over a 100 year span. While LNG can make a ship "cleaner", the problems with methane leakage along the supply chain make it arguably worse.