chengkp75

I hope the crew feel differently about spending their valuable time both training, and actually saving your entitled life. If I were a crew member who heard this attitude, I wouldn't lift a finger to save you.

Perhaps you've missed reading the various posts I've made about the safety briefing, including the one two posts above the one you quote:

This is one of the problems with desalination, it removes required minerals like magnesium, which can lead to water retention.

The reason they complain is because they feel entitled, and don't feel they should be ordered to do anything they don't like.

There are no "other" generators onboard that "handle non-propulsion" load. All generators connect to a common bus, and any generator will normally be supplying both propulsion and hotel load at the same time. Take Oasis for example. She has a maximum propulsion load of 60Mw. She has generating capacity of 97Mw. Typical hotel load for a ship that size is 11-12Mw (being generous here) so even at full speed, and full hotel load, you are only reaching 75% of capacity. The ship has automation that starts another generator when total load reaches 85% (thanks for pointing out the optimum efficiency point of marine diesels, only spent 46 years working on them), and will shut down a generator when it calculates that the load minus the one generator's capacity is below 60%. So, the ship's engines operate in the 60-85% range, usually closer to 80%, so there is adequate reserve capacity for all the hair dryers being turned on. And, again, I will say that it is a safety concern, not a wattage concern. The largest source of failures with appliances of any type that have heating elements is not with the cord, but with the "overtemperature" or "auto-off" switch, which leads to melting of the appliance, and fire. The ship's hair dryers, and coffee pots if supplied, are routinely tested for operation of the "auto-off" feature, and I've had one melt down while in the electrical shop for testing. They are all the same. But, I'll let this go. There are plenty of lines that allow passengers to bring their hair dryers onboard.

As I've said before, to these guys in this and other threads, the safety briefing has been allowed to be shown on the ship's TVs, and not at the muster drill, for many years, even before the e-muster was thought of. They seem to conveniently miss that point, and think the only thing the muster drill is about is the safety briefing. Fine with me to have a video safety briefing, and then the passengers can stand like dummies for the entire muster drill. And, I have to laugh at the complaints about being "ordered into lines, and being shouted at for talking", when that is exactly what would be happening in a real emergency.

So, RCI ships are built differently than Carnival and NCL ships, which do allow people to bring hair dryers onboard? I believe you were the one who mentioned "source" capacity. Does this not refer to the generator capacity? Not sure what this has to do with it, as no shipboard bathroom that I've ever seen has anything other than a razor outlet in it, which is on a different circuit (lighting) than the cabin outlets, and also is limited to about 40 milliamps.

Shipboard cabin outlet circuits are 20 amp circuits, but they service 2-3 cabins. So, the weight of hte wiring is already there. The design maximum generating capacity is always more than the ship needs. Have never heard of a specific outlet being recommended, they are all on a common circuit. They can handle 1800 watt hair dryers, provided the ladies in the adjacent cabins do not all plug in at once. The reason the cruise lines supply hair dryers is because then they can take them out of service for routine inspection for faults, and replace as needed. Many consumer hair dryers in the US are 1800 watts, so this will overload a 15 amp circuit. Your house has, by code, a 20 amp circuit dedicated to a single bathroom's outlets (though if baths are directly above each other, you can do one circuit for two baths), just for this reason.

This is a common misconception. Water produced onboard comes from two sources. The first, evaporation, produces water with a sodium content less than 10ppm (most commonly 1-2ppm). The second, Reverse Osmosis, is set to produce water with less than 20ppm (both systems will dump the water produced if above this limit). Your water quality for Ann Arbor, for 2021, showed an average sodium content of 65ppm, with a range of results from 46-91. Even a place like Miami, that does not use salt on roads in winter, has a sodium level of 36ppm.

Yeah, lots of overpaid USCG officers out there. And who does the USCG invite to be a part of the "Cruise Ship National Center of Experience", to study cruise ship safety and operations? Cruise line executives. Now, they may be overpaid, but you seem to think they are not invested in the status quo.

Again, unless the damage would have to be caused across multiple compartments (i.e. several explosive devices), most likely nearly 75% of the number of compartments the ship has (and a medium sized ship like the Norwegian Sky has 14 watertight compartments) in order to get the ship to sink in under an hour. Even ships that break in two, like the SS Pendleton in 1952, where both halves of the ship remained floating for days. Ships sinking in minutes are generally limited to warships that have their magazines explode.

Yes, 46 years at sea, 38 as Chief Engineer, had all my license examinations, all STCW required training (advanced firefighting, crowd and crisis management, designated security duties, engine room team management, tankerman engineer (DL), MARPOL) SOLAS training (basic firefighting, advanced firefighting, lifesaving appliances)

Looking up the visa requirements, you would need an ETA from Sri Lanka, just for the cruise. Then, when you cleared ashore at your first port, they would give you a tourist visa (based on the ETA)(so requiring a face to face with immigration), and you would have to show proof of sufficient funds for the travel time in Sri Lanka, and proof of onward travel (written authorization from the cruise lines to reboard at the second port).

So, Underwriters Labs are just wrong? How about the IIHS? Consumer Products Safety Administration? National Fire Safety Council? Which experts do you believe and which don't you? Is it that those who make your life "uncomfortable" are not believable? You'll notice I said the vast majority, not all. Question for you, was the drill better, the same, or worse than the in person drills pre-covid? Did you do an outdoor in person muster before covid?

Thanks, Paul. Saved me trotting out the canned reply to Star Princess and fire. Interestingly enough, in laboratory conditions, using on of Princess' own towels, the investigators could not get a cigarette to ignite the towel. Everyone who looks up the Star Princess fire, whether to Wiki or the MAIB report, misses the little words like "allegedly" or "likely" with reference to the cause of the fire.

Typically, up to 100% passenger capacity, all passengers are accommodated in the boats. Look at Oasis. Her double occupancy is 5606 passengers. Her 18 lifeboats hold 354 passengers (370 capacity minus the 16 crew), for a total of 6372 passengers in boats. Her maximum passenger capacity is 6699, so even somewhat above double occupancy, all passengers are in the boats. Adding in the 2181 crew to the 6699 max passenger capacity, gives a maximum "all souls" of 8880. The 370x18 lifeboat capacity (6660) is exactly 75% of "all souls". So, until Oasis gets to a booking level of 114% occupancy, all passengers will be in boats.

Quite right. And the WHO may keep the emergency longer than the US, or less time than the US. I was saying that the USCG won't undo the e-muster if the IMO does, until the US government does as well.

This is the crux of the e-muster argument. Not whether it gives the passengers real training in what would happen in an actual emergency or not. Safety be damned. It is, however, your job to work with the crew as a team to try to save the life you don't care enough about to spend 0.5% of your cruise (about the same percentage of time it takes to do the airline safety briefing) to do. And, to follow the instructions of the Captain and crew. How does the e-muster do this? I find the attitude that "my vacation time" is worth more than the crew's time (who are drilling to save the passengers' lives) incredible (though not unbelievable in today's entitled society).

They never have. SOLAS requires that 75% of "all souls" be accommodated in fixed lifeboats, but the ship has to have 125% of "all souls" capacity of boats and rafts. The crew have always been assigned to rafts. The only crew that get into the lifeboats are the 3 assigned as crew of the boat (up to 16 for boats like the Oasis has). This is a common misconception that cruise passengers have. It actually reads, from your quote: "30 min from the time the abandon ship signal is given after all persons have been assembled, with life jackets donned." (bolding and underlining, mine). Now, first off, the "passenger muster" signal is not the "abandon ship" signal. It is the "fire and general emergency" signal, after which the passengers are directed to go to their muster stations. Now, the muster is taken, waiting for everyone to show up, and put their lifejacket on, then everyone waits. Only if the emergency gets out of control, and the Captain decides that the passengers should evacuate, will a PA announcement to "board the boats" be given. This is when the clock starts ticking, for your 30 minutes, but be aware that not all boats are loaded at the same time, nor lowered and released at the same time, so the 30 minutes is for each boat. In other words, if you are in the third boat called from your indoor muster station to get into the boat, only when they call you does your 30 minutes start. See my post regarding the Concordia, and what caused it to roll over, and that the boats were launched, as designed, at up to 20* listing. See the comments about the studies of the Concordia sinking, and how that is the worst case scenario, and it still took over an hour.

All of them. Barring a complete failure of command, as what happened on the Concordia (and was the sole reason for the chaotic evacuation and loss of life), any ship, following proper procedures can evacuate before sinking. Take the Concordia as an example, since it was mentioned previously in the thread. This is considered by marine accident investigators to be the "worst case" scenario for a ship sinking. Cruise ships are divided into many watertight compartments below the waterline, the Concordia had 11. Cruise ships are designed as "two compartment" ships, meaning that if any two adjacent compartments fully flooded, the ship would stay afloat. The Concordia breached 4 compartments, and therefore there was nothing on God's earth that was going to keep that ship from sinking. Now, while the breach was on the port side, the compartments that were flooding (engine rooms) ran all the way across the ship, so flooding would essentially be equal between port and starboard, and this is what the Concordia exhibited during the first hour after striking the rock, it was sinking down by the stern, but with a list of no more than 10-12* to port or starboard (it changed as the ship swung around in the wind). Computer studies of the Concordia show that had she not grounded a second time on Giglio, the ship would have stayed afloat longer, and would have remained upright (the fact that where she grounded the second time had deeper water towards shore, allowed the ship to pivot on this rock and roll over). The first striking of the rock was at 21:45 hours, and the ship did not ground on Giglio until after 22:33 hours, and even at 23:10 hours, the list was only 10* (and lifeboats are designed to launch at 20* list). Schettino was notified about the extent of the flooding (at least 3 compartments) at 21:55, and should have signaled for passenger muster (the "fire and general emergency signal") at this time. If he had, the passengers would have been mustered, and the boats prepared long before the ship grounded on Giglio, and therefore, they could have had an orderly evacuation with only an acceptable list. As it was, 23 of 26 lifeboats were launched, and 71% of all souls onboard were evacuated using the ship's boats. All of that is to say that ships don't sink in minutes. Even the Titanic, with it's design flaws, took nearly 3 hours to sink. So, given that a catastrophic breach like the Concordia's is extremely rare, and without a command failure, a ship like the Oasis would take a couple of hours or much longer to sink, I am completely confident that given the training the crew received using the in person muster training, that every passenger could be evacuated safely, and the crew also (remember, when the passengers get into the boats, only the 3 assigned to each boat as crew (up to 16 for Oasis type boats) would be evacuating with the passengers). The crew waits until the passengers have all been evacuated, and then, if the Captain feels that the ship is not able to be saved, he/she will sound the "abandon ship" signal, and the crew will take to the life rafts. So, if

I beg to differ on this. For the most part, the speaking and demonstrations given during the in person drills are not required to be done, and are done during drill to keep you occupied. For years prior to the pandemic, when ships were using the in person drill, the IMO allowed that the safety demonstrations did not need to be done during the muster, as long as they were shown on the ship's TV (and several lines had the TVs set to that channel on turnaround day). What the in person drill does is give you experience in having everyone onboard doing the same thing, and trying to get to their muster stations at the same time as you. This is realistic training, and it has been shown in any industry, that the more realistic the training, the better the response in an actual emergency. The other part of the in person drill, is what the passengers don't see the crew doing, which is searching every cabin and public space (since there is no one there, you're all at muster), as they would in an emergency. It also provides the crew with real life experience in handling a crowd of thousands who may not be amenable to directions (during drills) or frightened (during emergency). The in person drill trains everyone onboard (passengers and crew) how to work as a team, to try to save your lives. In an actual emergency, you only need to know 3 things: show up, shut up, listen up. These are all taught in the in person drill but not in the e-muster. Believe me, if I thought for an instant that the e-muster gave better training than the in person muster, I'd be all for it, but if you look at posts by professional mariners on various forums here on CC, over the years since the e-muster came into existence, they all, to a man/woman, feel that the in person drill gave better training.

Nope, just a hazard of going to sea. Been in more than I can count, and only once did I think we might not make it, but that was a single hull tanker, where when you looked out the bridge windows, the entire ship forward of the house was submerged (not covered in spray, or hit with a wave) and not visible. But, she popped right back up and carried on. On land, either at home, work, or at your AI resort, in an emergency, you can just leave, and get away from the emergency. A shipboard emergency, you are fighting for your "planet" since there really isn't much option to remaining with the ship.

So, what was the emergency?

And, I can point to the IMO, which did not give the e-muster full approval, as it is unproven procedure. I can point to the number of shipboard emergencies where the passenger muster went off without a flaw, using the in person drill procedure. And, what really gets me, is that the vast majority of complaints about going back to the in person drill are from those who haven't done it yet. Look at the Disney board, you don't see a peep about the drill. And, yeah, I'll sign off here, even though you're pushing of the Points Guy opinion can lead to misinformation.

And, did they muster the passengers in preparation for abandoning the ship? Did they have the crew standby in case of flooding? I can pretty well guarantee you that the ship was in no danger of sinking, having been through tropical storms and hurricanes on various types of vessels. Not saying it wasn't unpleasant, and not saying it wasn't scary, but it wasn't an emergency, even as powerful as Dorian was.