chengkp75

Depends on what kind of pilot boat. A harbor pilot boat would not venture far out of sight of land, but a bar pilot boat is designed to come alongside a large ship, while that ship is still doing 6-7 knots, in open ocean waters, and many pilot boats (like the Columbia River bar pilots) will operate in breaking seas of over 10' (and are as self-righting as any RNLI boat. In the UK, for instance, the North Sea pilots board several miles offshore of Brixham harbor, in some of the worst weather I've seen small boats operate in.

I knew John as well from my time with NCL.

Yes, doing surveys out of synch with others gets expensive, so they should be stretching and compressing intervals to bring things into line.

Well, I'm assuming you are in the DNV Vessel Register, and entered the ship name. This will display a page with all the POA data on it. A "dry dock" is not a required survey/inspection, under "Surveys" you will see the "Bottom Complete Survey", this is the dry dock survey of all things under the waterline. This is showing as "next due" 6/29/2024. There is leeway there in the date range for the due date, so a few weeks either side is possible, allowing for dry dock availability. This date is somewhat out of sequence, as her last docking was June 2021, so this June is 36 months later, when it should have been no more than 30 months, so this must have been a covid exemption (shipyards not working), as her main class renewal date (the 5 year cycle of major inspections/surveys) is March 2025, and ships are normally required to dry dock for the renewal survey. Also, her class certificate is due in June 2025, which is again out of line with the renewal date of March 2025, so things are a bit muddy, but Covid tended to do that.

NCL has had azipods since the Dawn class, back in 2001. Spirit, POA, and the Jewel class all had azipods, then NCL returned to shafted propellers for Epic, and then back to azipods for Breakaway. Hawaii requires tugs to be on hand for docking/undocking in most ports, but they are almost never called on, and don't have to escort to the sea buoy. Can't remember if Hilo had tugs or not. Most tug work on cruise ships is "on a line" pulling, not pushing up against the ship, where the black tires mar the white hulls.

All international SAR is free of charge.

Oystein was Staff Chief on the Sky when I joined as observing First Engineer (had been sailing Chief for about 20 years, but took a step back to start with cruise ships) for a few months prior to the reflagging of the Aloha. Wonderful guy. Reflagging and dry docking the Sky was accelerated about 4 months or so, due to POA sinking.

No more than I am, just a simple boat mechanic.

I can't remember, but I don't think there are any tugs of any real pulling power based in Hilo, so if POA has an azipod out of service, she needs a tug escort for the entire (acknowledgedly short) maneuver out of harbor, so they may be getting a tug down to help out. Only real reason I can think of to delay the ship a full day in harbor.

Yeah, looked her up, Lindsey Smith. She was hired by NCL as a third engineer, as one of the original Pride of America crew. She actually made it to the shipyard, I was due to fly out to Germany the day the ship sank at the dock, so everyone was transferred to the Pride of Aloha (Norwegian Sky) for familiarization and reflagging. She has spent nearly her entire career with NCL, and on the POA in particular. While for senior engineers (Chief, Staff Chief, First) longevity on the ship leads to a lot of institutional knowledge and consistent maintenance, junior engineers can benefit from experiences on other ships and types of ships. Having said that, Linds was a good engineer.

Yeah, that's the southern route, the other route, north of Mauna Loa takes you past the ski mountain.

Depends on which way you go. One route goes past the Mauna Kea ski resort, though no snow at this time of year.

A Captain of the Pride of Aloha (former NCL ship in Hawaii), lived on the Big Island, and told me how some days they would go skiing in the morning on the mountain, and surfing in the afternoon.

What kind of maintenance? Are you talking about the appearance of the hotel areas, or things that don't work in the hotel? Or, the actual maintenance of the ship's systems? If you mean the latter, then I would ask your qualifications to make that statement, and your ability to determine what has caused the problem, and how you know the state of the ship's equipment. You are not new to CC, so you must have seen any of the numerous threads, across virtually every forum, many that I have responded to, regarding technical problems that either cancel cruises, delay ports, slow ships down, cause itinerary changes, or even require emergency dry dockings, and so on. It happens to every cruise line, and I would say that over the life of every cruise ship, it has happened more than once. According to the DNV database, yes, the POA is due for dry docking in June. .I'm not sure anymore (I've been gone for quite a while), but if it who I think it is, I trained her when she was a junior engineer on the Pride of Aloha. I don't recall the POA having any "propulsion" problems (if that is what this is, don't know any details), over the 20 years of her career. She did "tow" a buoy, chain and concrete anchor from Honolulu to Maui during her first year or two of operation, and that did cause some problems with delays in getting that unwrapped from the prop in Maui, but since she does so little time steaming on this itinerary, and most of it is relatively moderate speed, her propulsion system is never really stressed.

First off, no one is getting evacuated "mid-ocean". Just isn't going to happen, unless someone's Naval vessel is in the area, and then it would still take days to get to land. Second, no cruise line that I'm aware of would permit a non-government agency to attempt to land a helicopter, or attempt a winch evacuation anywhere near their ship. Only government agencies train for working around moving ships, and they assume the responsibility if things go sideways. And, only a very few government agencies have the ability to in-flight refuel a helicopter, further reducing the distance offshore that any evacuation would happen. "Evacuation" insurance is not for getting you from the ship to land, it is to get you from whatever hospital, in whatever country you were disembarked in, to a hospital in your home country.

While you are correct that the cruise is not in the US, there are certain cabotage laws that apply in the EU, similarly to the US's PVSA. If the port prior to Ravenna is in Italy, then it is likely that you would not be allowed to disembark, as this would be transportation between two Italian ports without a port call in between at another country. While any EU nation flagged ship could do this, non-EU ships are not allowed to do this. If the port prior to Ravenna is in another country, then this doesn't apply.

I would say, as I have on another thread, on NCL, about resuming Baltimore cruises, that the timeline to open the channel is a good one, in my opinion, but could be delayed at any time by weather, so that will be end of May. At that time, most of the salvage operation will be complete, the areas of bridge collapse outside the main channel will be cleared with less urgency, the investigations will have moved to the analysis stage, so the agencies will return to their offices, and the cruise terminal will return to cruise operations. I don't think anyone who knows about maritime salvage and dredging operations would have considered that cruising would return before the end of May, so my prediction is not any "later than thought". As someone said on the NCL thread, the channel would need to be dredged for cruise ships, and I pointed out that even the largest cruise ships that can get under the various bridges to get to Baltimore would have a draft of about 24', while the Dali, which caused the problem in the first place draws 49'. So, even with some debris still on the bottom of the channel, cruise ships could start using the channel long before other ships do.

The pavement pieces are a much larger worry with regards to clearing the channel bottom, and for future dredging.

If the channel is open to general marine traffic, which is the hope by end of May, it will be deep enough for cruise ships, which have far less draft than cargo ships. For instance, NCL's largest ships, which couldn't fit under the bridges anyway, have a draft of 28 feet, 7 inches. The Dali, which caused this problem, has a draft of 49 feet, 4 inches. By the time the main channel is completely cleared, end of May, much of the remainder of the bridge damaged sections will also have been removed, so salvage operations will be winding down (less urgency), and the investigations will have moved to the analysis stage, so the incident command center will no longer be needed, and the city/state can find other accommodations for any headquarters still needed.

Some eat kosher all year long, so RCI is very used to providing kosher meals, upon prior notification, just like any other dietary restriction. They are frozen, and double wrapped, where the inner wrapping is removed by the diner. If I remember correctly, RCI does 2 or 3 cruises a year where one venue is cleaned and certified as kosher for large groups.

Unless they are planning a major renovation including new venues and such, no, they won't make a big deal of a dry docking. They are statutory, and deal mainly with ship's technical systems, and any refurbishment of the hotel side is secondary to the technical work. Given the cruise lines' current fiscal situation, I doubt that much beyond renewing worn carpeting, some reupholstery, and cabinetry repairs will happen. The 12th to the 26th is two weeks, which is pretty much a minimum time frame for a dry docking, so this would also point to no major changes being made.

No, this would be a complete redesign of the vessel. That would be new rudders to start with. Then, to double/triple the power of the thrusters would require gutting and renewing everything from the motors to the size of the tunnels for the thruster propellers (and getting space inside for the larger motors and ancillary equipment). Getting room for an additional diesel generator to power these more powerful thrusters would be nearly impossible. I would say that changing to variable pitch propellers, and high lift rudders, instead of up-powering the thrusters would be far more doable and have the same, or better effect. I've been on ships that converted from fixed pitch to variable pitch, and the space requirements for the new equipment are minor, and don't require cutting into or modifying the hull.

That is not what Andy said. He stated that the two ships are designed differently. There is no "overhaul" that can change the Neptune from shafted propellers to azipods. You will notice that he did mention that Neptune did not have variable pitch propellers nor "high lift" rudders. I've been on ships with shafted propellers, that were variable pitch, and did have high lift rudders, and these were very nearly as maneuverable as azipod propelled ships. What the design decisions to have the current propulsion/maneuvering system on the Viking ships, is something only discussed in Viking's boardroom. Secondly, he said nothing at all about the Viking ship being less "ocean worthy" than the Cunard ships. He stated that they had different handling characteristics while maneuvering at low speeds (docking/undocking), but they also have differing handling in high winds due to the relative sizes of the two ships. 98% of the ships in the world are not as maneuverable as the Cunard ships when docking, and rely on tugs to make up for it. Whether or not the harbormaster would have allowed the Viking ship to depart with tug assist is something none of us know, nor will know. Whether the decision to not depart with tugs was a financial decision or a safety decision (the company's SMS, as Andy points out), is also something none of us will ever know.

Just understand that @Ferry_Watcher deals only with cruises to Alaska, so Canada is the only foreign nation's requirements she would be familiar with.

Another main reason given for not requiring documentation is that those who are disabled do not want to have to disclose their disability. People who get handicap placards have to disclose their disability to their doctor, but then HIPAA means that no one else needs to know why the placard was granted. I have also heard of cases where a family pet learns to alert for diabetes or seizures, and then is considered as a service animal, but has no formal training or documentation.