chengkp75

And, I for one, don't begrudge those tax dollars spent in this fashion. Have known mariners who were evacuated in emergencies, and thankful that the service is there.

Any helicopter evacuation from a ship at sea is done free of charge to the patient. The US has agreed under the UN's SAR (search and rescue) convention to take responsibility for SAR missions around our coasts, and most of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean, and under the SAR convention, this service is provided free. "Evacuation" insurance does not cover evacuation from the ship, only from whatever land hospital you were evacuated to, to a hospital of your choice in your home town. And, in fact, sending a Coast Guard cutter to make an evacuation is free as well, as is sending a police or pilot boat for a close in evacuation.

Yes, the ship's Captain, the ship's doctor, the flight crew, and the, in this case, Air Force flight surgeon made the decision that the risk of winching the patient, and spending a couple of hours in a helicopter with marginal life support systems (even though it is a fully equipped medevac helicopter), outweighed the additional time with the life support systems of the ship to get closer. The patient apparently had a perforated bowel, and time was critical. And, if this had been anywhere else in the world, it would have waited for the ship to get closer to land, taking more time, to send out a helicopter, as almost no one on earth has aerial refueling helicopters besides the US.

Coast Guard helicopters cannot refuel in flight. That is why the Air Force was tasked with the long range mission on Venezia, because they have the capability of inflight refueling.

Virtually no helicopter evacuation from a ship at sea will be done by anything other than the military (or coast guard) using military type equipment. The reason the helicopter came back alongside the ship, is that the flight crew want to avoid a catastrophe if a problem happens to the helicopter, so it doesn't go down on the ship. Also, the thermals over the ship from the ship's funnels makes it hard to maintain a good hover, requiring lots of concentration, so minimizing the time hovering over the ship is logical. The only time those helipads on the bow of cruise ships are used is when the seas are absolutely glass calm. Since the ship needs to keep moving to head into seas to minimize motion, the helicopter needs to maintain a "moving hover" (hovering stationary over a moving spot), with the high front of the ship heading right into the cockpit window. Most evacuations happen on the top deck, roughly midships.

I'm not sure that it is a passport "sampling" that randomizes the scrutiny, but I know that CBPS gives each agent quite a bit of latitude when determining action. As noted, Regent will not get involved (it's not their business), and he may not be allowed on the train to the Yukon, or he may, upon disembarking in Vancouver, be escorted by CBPS to his flight. Or, nothing may happen.

Regatta 8/25 Nautica 2/25 Insignia 12/24 Sirena 10/24 Marina 5/24 (but this may just be an in-water survey) Riviera 12/25

But, what were the vetting requirements set by NCL? Does it have a mental health investigation, and what does that cover? Does it have a "temper" clause? And, NCL has the right to turn down any crew member before they even travel to the ship.

It's never been even a tradition that the Captain must die with the ship. In the days of sailing ships, the Master was very often a part owner, and so could be sued by the cargo owners for the value of the lost cargo. Even when not an owner, the Master was personally responsible to the owners for the value of the ship and cargo. So, when a ship went down, some decided that rather than face debtor's prison, it was better to just die with the ship. Conscious decision, not a tradition. It was more treated as "the Captain must ensure that all passengers and crew are safely away from the ship, but in doing so, he risks not being able to get away himself".

South African, I was incorrect before. But, still, nope. If the person met the requirements of the contract between NCL and the crewing agency, there is nothing NCL can do about it.

Yes, the crew are not getting anything extra for being hired by the ship management company. And, while Viking is paying a fee to Wilhelmsen for managing the ship, they have found that, as you say, Wilhelmsen can do it better, for less money (less Viking shore payroll offsets the Wilhelmsen fee). In fact, Wilhelmsen does the payroll for crew as well, but the pay rates are set by Viking, either by market forces or by collective bargaining agreements in the crew's home country.

Not really. Viking places certain expectations of quality, professionalism, and service on the management company, and if these are not met, then if the problem is with a crew member or officer, they are replaced at Viking's request. If the problem is endemic, then the management company can find itself being replaced.

Not a law, but a requirement to meet the US USPH/CDC Vessel Sanitation Program. Interestingly enough, the EU's ShipSan program, while similar, allows swim diapers in pools.

Virtually all ships' crews, on all vessels around the world are hired by the shipowners through manning agencies in the home countries of the crew. Shipowners find this practice very efficient, as the company does not need to keep a large personnel department, with contacts in many countries, but relies on the crewing agencies to have large pools of candidates available at all times. In the US, crew are hired through unions, for the much the same reasons, the union is responsible for maintaining the pool of mariners, not the company.

Still doesn't answer why whether they are employed by Viking or by Wilhelmsen it would affect your evaluation of them.

Now, which officers are you referring to, and what have they not done to your satisfaction? Interested to know, as again, noted that there is an operational break between technical and hotel.

If you've seen these people in the passenger public areas, they are not part of the regular crew, especially wearing t-shirts. At any time, there can be manufacturer's tech reps onboard to service equipment, it is found to be more cost effective, and better maintenance that way. For instance, the engines require complete overhaul every 2.5 years, and this takes 5-6 men, working 12 hour days, about 4-6 weeks to complete. The engineering staff do not have that kind of man/hours available from their "normal" maintenance routines, so one or two tech reps from the engine manufacturer are brought in, and a marine engineering service, like Goltens or Chris Marine, will provide some more grunt labor. Now, if you've seen these people wearing this gear ashore, well, getting "swag" from the tech reps is a longstanding maritime tradition, and the first question the crew ask the tech reps is "what swag do you have?" Many cruise lines that don't use an outside ship management company, will use an in-house, operating company that charters the ship from the parent cruise line, and further, typically only one, or at most three, ships are owned by the same company, regardless of how many ships the cruise line has. So, for example, the Viking Orion is owned by "33 Sea Leasing Co, Ltd" while Viking Star is owned by "Viking Ocean Cruise Ships I", and both are managed by Wilhelmsen on the technical side, and likely another Viking subsidiary operates the hotel side.

And, really, even if you contaminate your hands from the menu, if you don't eat with your fingers, you break the transmission chain. Knife and fork for french fries, burgers, and pizza, if you are concerned.

Typically, the necropsy finds that the whale was diseased or injured prior to the ship strike, as whales are quite able to avoid ships when healthy.

That's not quite correct. The statement from MSC says both reverse osmosis and evaporation. Generally more is made by evaporation, since this uses waste heat from the diesel engines to evaporate the sea water, while reverse osmosis uses electricity to pump the sea water at high pressure, so evaporation is more efficient and more environmentally friendly. And, the water in the restaurants and bars is filtered, but not because of taste or smell. It is filtered to prevent chlorine scale formation in the water stations/bar guns. So, further to the OP's question, the "tap water" is at least RO quality (and all RO water has some minerals in it), or better, as the RO water is mixed with the evaporator made (distilled) water. I looked at quality reports for Nestle Pure Life, and found sodium, chloride, and sulfates as reportable quantities, and total dissolved solids in the range of 26-60ppm. Shipboard RO units stop producing water, and dump the product back to sea at 20ppm, and evaporators dump at 10ppm, and generally operate at 1ppm total dissolved solids. Chlorides come in at 6-16ppm, whereas the ship's water only has a residual chlorine of 0.5ppm.

While it does not change the closed loop status for what documentation is required, it does change it for what CBP may decide to do with regards to disembarkation interviews. They may, at their discretion, go to the "starting at a foreign port" type of interview, requiring more time for each passenger. I remember when NCL was interporting a cruise with embark/disembark ports in Miami and Roatan or Belize. It caused the Miami to Miami disembarks to have a foreign voyage start interview, and there was a lot of delays and complaints about missed flights, partly because CBP didn't have enough agents there. The interporting didn't last long.

Virtually all crew are hired from crewing services in their home country, which supply crew to many different cruise lines.Some lines, HAL for instance, have training academies in Indonesia where crew learn the basics of their jobs (table service, guest interaction, some cooking skills, etc), while in most countries the onshore training of new hires is minimal. All safety training and most training in their assigned duties is done in the first week onboard. Typically, the first NCL employee that a new hire will meet will be the HR clerk signing them on the ship.

Why else would he knowingly violate company policy, and then continue to press the issue in the face of the parents wishes? I'll tell you what, every single Captain I've worked for, and every Hotel Director would fire that man in an instant if that was reported. You actually condone this?

There is an overlap in jurisdiction between "port state" (the country where the port or waters the incident happened in) and "flag state" (the country where the ship is registered). And this gray area is what keeps Admiralty lawyers in business. In a port (I don't remember if this happened in port or at sea), the flag state has jurisdiction on the ship, unless the "safety or well being" of the port state are affected, in which case the port state has jurisdiction. However, the US has also claimed "extra-territorial" jurisdiction to claim jurisdiction over certain crimes against US citizens that happen on the open ocean (in no other country's waters), regardless of the flag of the ship.

Don't know where the "engineers and technical staff are obviously contractors", or how they are so obviously contractors. The deck (Captain, bridge officers, deck crew, Medical, Security, and Environmental officers) and engine (all engineers and maintenance personnel onboard, whether in the engine room or in the hotel) are the technical departments of a cruise ship, and both departments will be either company employees or employees of a Ship Management company.