Nieuw Amsterdam Vibration Problems?

[poconut]

Against my better judgement, I am going to repeat what we were told on our NA cruise last March. Your quote is right on. We met the guy who had been flown to the NA to try and fix the vibration. he said it was due to harmonics, and he was using a software program to try and balance the loads. he also said the fundamental frequency was 9 Hz. And that in order to balance the loads, he had to jack up the engines, add in some rubber (? can't remember what they were made of) 'spacers' and then lower engine back down. He said it was indeed a design flaw.

 

When I posted this after our cruise, I was roundly told by many "experts" on this board, who weren't there, that he was full of baloney, we were stupid to listen to him, etc etc. So, while my husband and I believed him (we are both engineers), I am only contributing this to confirm your guess!

 

No need for anyone to tell us we are stupid or he was wrong. :)

 

Good luck

ML

 

PS: I agree, it is not polite to make fun of old fogeys!

 

Thank you for that explanation.

[IRL_Joanie]

I said in another post about the vibrations encountered on the Nieuw Amsterdam and alluded to a passenger having a life threatening situation that caused the ship to cruise at its highest speed, which in turn would have caused the extreme vibration we saw in a Posted Nieuw Amsterdam video.

 

I asked the passenger and their family member for permission to post the following without names and CC member names.

 

Here is the email with names removed ( I amusing the terms Passenger 1 and Passenger 2 as the ill passenger)

 

Hi Joanie,

We’re glad to hear back from you. We are doing fine and enjoying our summer here in Michigan. Passenger 2 did have a very serious issue on our January 4-18 Nieuw Amsterdam cruise. We had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed the cruise until the last evening when we were getting ready to go to the Landfall Dinner. Passenger 2 was combing out the hair in the cabin and I was having a smoke and drink on our balcony when passenger 2 passed out on the bed. I tried to awake passenger 2 to no avail and from the symptoms thought passenger 2 was having a stroke. I called 911 and passenger 2 was taken to the infirmary where the doctor ran a bunch of test and told me that it was either a stroke, brain aneurism or a brain tumor and that she needed a CT scan to determine which it was. She further stated that the cruise ships do not carry a CT scan machine and due to weather and sea conditions, an airlift was impossible. The captain was speeding up the ship to get us into Fort Lauderdale ASAP. He got us there at 4am, used the thrusters to hold us against the first dock we came to, and an ambulance was there to take us to Broward Health Medical Center which was 5 minutes from the port.

 

passenger 2 was given a CT Scan and the on-duty neuro surgeon diagnosed passenger 2 with a subarachnoid hemorrhage which is very serious. He told me he had already called the specialist who is on his way in to the hospital to perform the necessary surgery. This surgeon, Dr. Agner, aka “The Brain Plumber” is called a endovascular radiological neurosurgeon. He is a “super specialist” and one of only about 100 doctors in the U.S. that are certified to perform coiling of brain aneurisms. This is a procedure of using a catheter entering into the femoral artery in the leg and inserting very small coils into the ruptured artery, then basically cauterizing the rupture and stopping the bleeding.

 

After 4 1/2 hours of surgery, he came out and gave me the good news that he had stopped the bleeding. passenger 2 was not yet out of the woods. passenger 2 :D needed to be put into ICU as her head was filled with blood and it was too early to tell if any permanent damage to the brain was done.

 

To make this short, she beat odds of about a million to one, and fully regained all her faculties. She was in the ICU for a total of ten days, and an additional 5 days in a special sub-ICU, then 3 days with me in a hotel right near the hospital. She was then allowed to fly home with me as her escort.

 

Dr. Agner set up an appointment with a colleague in Michigan as she would need follow up care once home. On April 2 she had a second endovascular surgery here in Michigan. A stint was installed using the same procedure and the aneurism is now completely sealed off and should never bother her again.

 

The only way to describe this tariffing ordeal is “Divine Intervention” commonly define as a miracle. The doctor told me that 2/3 of patients with this condition never make it to the hospital, and many of the remaining 1/3 die during surgery or suffer serious deficits in major life functions. She had not of these and has now fully recovered.

 

We celebrated (with the doctor’s blessing) by going on a 7 day cruise on the Royal Princess late in April and will be going again on the Nieuw Amsterdam in January, 2016. We have been so blessed to be able to continue on with our lives and plan on living each day to it’s fullest. You never know what life hold in store for you, so we just live each day like it is our last.

 

 

We hope you and Roger and doing fine and we hope that we all may be fortunate to cruise together again.

 

Please stay in touch,

Edited June 9, 2015 by IRL_Joanie

[hpf]

What a wonderful outcome to such a scarey situation. It's great when great things are reported here, they make all the trivial things seem unimportant.

Thanks Joanie and we wish the couple a great cruise (trouble free) in 2016.

 

Helen

[sail7seas]

What an awful experience but how fortunate she has made such a wonderful recovery. Wishing them all the best.

[bonvoyagebites]

Best wishes and good health to all involved.

[legalslave]

The good Lord has truly blessed her.

 

Diane

[legalslave]

we are aft balcony 8164 on an upcoming nieuw Amsterdam cruise.have never done an aft balcony before, but have read good things. is it windy? noisy? was there so,e cover from the sun?

 

I have only stayed in aft wraps on deck 7 port side. We have also only sailed in these cabins in Alaska. On one of the cruises, we made friends with the people on the aft facing cabin next to us. There was no wind on their balcony. There was a few feet of cover over the balcony. Deck 8 aft facing cabins may be different. Hopefully someone can answer your question. Maybe start a new thread entitled deck 8 aft facing cabins verandah questions.

 

Diane

[Krazy Kruizers]

Thank you Joanie for sharing your e-mail from your friends.

What a horrible experience. But thankfully the ending was a happy one.

[HamOp]

Wow. Just Wow! The stars sure were lined up just right for her.

[ger_77]

What a frightening experience - so glad it turned out well.

 

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

[DeeniEncinitas]

Joanie,

THANKYOU so much for the letter.

I am so glad your friends are well.

Such a frightening experience but with a great outcome!

God bless to all!

Happy cruising.

Denise:)

[SurferJoe57]

The vibration at the dock was pronounced and hoping it would be less once underway we spent a very unpleasant first night.

The fact that this hasn't been corrected leads one to believe it is a mechanical design problem involving harmonics amongst those big engine/generators and their load sharing. I would assume NA has experimented with altering with these.

Fascinating. There's a parallel thread over on the Carnival boards about the PRIDE and it's ever-worsening vibration problem. I'd suspected it was caused by the bearings going out on the Azipods (the CCL Miracle, another Spirit-class, had a bearing problem which caused some iteniary changes/slower transit speeds) as the problem SEEMED to be speed related. However...they also added quite a bit of topside weight in the last yard period (another swim pool, additional galley/restaurants topside) and that would definitely cause the harmonics issue you're mentioning here.

[POA1]

we are aft balcony 8164 on an upcoming nieuw Amsterdam cruise.have never done an aft balcony before, but have read good things. is it windy? noisy? was there so,e cover from the sun?

 

My DSIL and DBIL are big fans of the aft Neptune Suites as are a fair number of people on CC. DW and I are not. There are pros and cons to them, to be sure, but noise and wind aren't generally among them. (Not counting a big following wind, but directional wind can be an issue anywhere.)

 

The cabins can get hot if you are facing the sun. You may want to draw the curtains to keep the room cooler. Other than that, I think they're a decent choice.

 

However, if you are traveling with other people, try to get everyone on the same end of the ship. When we were on the Noordam last year, we were right across from the entrance to the Neptune Lounge. DBIL & DSIL were down two decks in an aft NS. We had to travel many miles - and pack a lunch - when we went to visit them.*

 

Seriously though, they're nice cabins with great open spaces.

 

*It wasn't really miles, but it's kind of a hike.

[123linz123]

My concern for the vibration would not be for the feeling of it, or things moving on the ship. But more about what the vibration is actually doing to the ship.

Continual vibration on any boat, car engine, or any thing else, usually means bad news.

I have also been on a cruise where the ship had to increase speed to rendezvous with a helicopter pick up for a sick passenger, there was no vibration due to the extra speed.

[DocF]

Over the years, most of the vibration threads I have encountered has concerned ships with azipod propulsion. Bearing and seal issues have been common with this type of unit and these can lead to vibration. Also, if a particular ship has a cavitation problem, there will be a definite vibration. Cavitation is air being sucked into the propeller. This can be cured by minor modifications to the hull that improve the flow of water in the aft portions of the hull. Most issues of this type are not of a serious nature, so one can feel safe regardless of vibration issues.

[colorado cruiser 42]

My concern for the vibration would not be for the feeling of it, or things moving on the ship. But more about what the vibration is actually doing to the ship.

Continual vibration on any boat, car engine, or any thing else, usually means bad news.

I have also been on a cruise where the ship had to increase speed to rendezvous with a helicopter pick up for a sick passenger, there was no vibration due to the extra speed.

 

This concern was on my mind but not included in my previous blog on the vibration I felt on Nieuw Ampsterdam. From an engineering view it is interesting to note that several of the ship's engine/generators are run at different speeds, 500 and 550 rpm, to provide the different frequencies for 115 and 220 volt house power. A response to my blog quoted 9HZ as the harmonic frequency which would be 540 cpm. Interesting. The fact that the vibration seems to vary both in severity and location is also food for thought. This is probably of little interest to most cruisers, but there are at least a few of us.

[Hlitner]

This topic just plays into our routine practice on most ships to book cabins up near the bow. The main engines (generators) are all arrayed towards the center of the ship (center of gravity) and can cause vibration (and some noise). The props (or Azipods) are in the aft quarter of the ship and can cause vibration due to cavitation. But up towards the bow there are no major mechanical systems (except the bow thrusters only used near the ports) and foot traffic in the corridors is at a minimum. The downside is that it can be very rocky in rough seas, but DW and I have little problem with motion.

 

By the way, when it comes to expensive suites here is a true tale. When we did a crossing on Queen Mary 2, our ship encountered severe fog all the way across the North Atlantic. The fog was so thick it was nearly impossible to see the sea from cabin balconies. In accordance with International Maritime Law, our Captain had to operate the fog horn all night (and much of the day). So every 2 minutes there was a loud blast from the ship's horn. Those who were in the expensive suites did not get a lot of sleep since their cabins are all clustered on the higher decks where that horn was very audible. Those of us in "steerage" were in parts of the ship where we heard nothing...and we all slept like babies in those calm seas.

 

Hank

[Tennessee Titan]

For what it is worth. We have sailed one the NA 9 times, cabins all over the ship. Yes there has been vibration and we commented on it. But it never annoyed us. Some folks are much more sensitive to such things than others.....

[pmcubed]

I just noticed this thread.

 

We were on NA in February 2015. We didn't notice the vibration in our aft verandah cabin BUT we definitely noticed it in the dining room.

 

The water in our glasses really had waves in it. Also my wine (so I consumed that - didn't want any of that to spill). It really made all of us at the table laugh watching the waves in our water glasses.

 

Pat

[Tennessee Titan]

I should mention that on the last TA (April 2015, after drydock), vibrations were considerably less.

[Hlitner]

Ok, so hear is an amusing and very true vibration tale. A few years ago DW and I were on then RCCL's Enchantment of the Seas for her maiden voyage out of Southampton. This ship has a public lounge (might have been called Explorers in those days) that is off a main corridor on an upper deck. There was one area in that lounge that had a very pronounced vibration and it was at its worse on one particular sofa in the lounge. DW noted that any woman who sat on that sofa soon had a big smile on their face :).

 

Hank

[SeaDays]

I'm finding Colorado Cruiser 42's comments fascinating, and thank him for his insight.

 

We've done about 70 cruises on ships that ranged from the SS U.S. to today's mega-vessels. We've experienced steam, early diesels, today's diesel electrics, gas turbines, with and without azipods. We've done the Eurodam as well as all four Vista class vessels.

 

Our Eurodam experience was a bit different than what we've remembered in the past. (Yeah, sailing at 37 knots on the Big U was unique). The vibration did not seem like engine or prop sourced. It ranged from zero to very noticeable as we moved throughout the ship. Even felt it far forward -- more of a structural feeling. The subject was brought up during a Q&A with the captain, but was not addressed very well.

 

The signature class ships are notable for extra height and also a switch to Caterpillar marine engines, as opposed to the well used Wartsila-Sulzer power-plants.

 

I'm not an engineer, and will certainly not attempt to explain or analyze. Just observing. That said, I've sailed in aft cabins on many of todays's ships and have found those with azipods to perfectly acceptable as far as cabin noise and comfort.

[nonnudie]

So.. Has the vibration issue been corrected in Drydock? I am planning on sailing in Nov '15 and really dont want to deal with it. The last ship I sailed on (Celebrity Reflection) was the smoothest riding ship I have been on. I never felt any Vibration. Before that was NCL Getaway and had an aft Haven Suite. The motion was quite annoying. It was like a click, click, click to port side and then a click, click , click to starboard.. UGH. If anyone has a link to anything describing what was done in the last drydock, I would appreciate it.

Thanks.