Do you think they could do it?

[chengkp75]

Much as I hate to spend the time to answer this post, I will put my 40 years of maritime experience and training against this crew member's viewpoint. This may be long winded, and for that I apologize, but all of this is so patently untrue that I will have to deal with this point by point.

 

 

I just completed a great cruise on the Emerald Princess. Our muster station was in the theater and judging by the crowd of passengers assembled, Princess will need a magician to get us all in lifeboats within a thirty (30) minute evacuation. That's assuming there is no fire, serious hull rupture, stormy seas, or panicking crew. Even so, the muster crew stated, with Titanic-like confidence, a sinking of this top heavy cruise ship was "unlikely". This was followed by a fairly quick mutter that there were NOT enough lifeboats for all passengers. Some passengers would have to be evacuated by MES. Wha-a-at? I got online and looked up MES and learned it meant Marine Evacuation System. Basically this is a five-deck slide (actually more of a free-fall chute) into an inflated life raft. Passengers can see the MES on deck. They are in large canisters and remind me of depth charges. There are 3,092 lower passenger berths and 1,200 crew. There are eighteen (18) lifeboats with capacity of 150 persons.If (at that's a big if) all lifeboats were filled to capacity, then there would be room for 2,700 people. So, let's get the record straight: 1,592 persons are going down the chutes into life rafts. Before you attack me please read this from a cruise ship crew member worth considering:

 

"Hello, I am crew member on princess cruises ships lately on grand class, and guess what same system is used on board our ships! I did a simple mat in my 2nd contract 5 years ago if ship sink there absolutely no way that all of us survive ! Why, you may ask, well let me tell you! Like a crew member I first don't feel safe my self (in general I'm trying not to think of it but...) First off, what math are you referring to that leads you to believe that not everyone will survive. You were required to have training in personal survival and safety, but further to this, have you done anything to take personal responsibility for your safety, or are you relying strictly on your employer?

 

 

First, we do have a drill every week but for this 7 years with company I'm always been assigned to auxiliary party. What that means well in case of emergency, we are additional force which suppose to be assigned to help where needed. But in reality that means that every week when drill alarm sounds I need to go to my designated station and sit down for 1h chatting with colleagues waiting for captain to announce that drill is finished! And that all! For real! I am not joking!Have you ever requested a different emergency duty that might require more training to make you feel safer? Or would you feel that this is impacting on your free time? Are the crew that are assigned to fire teams and boat crews adequately trained? It has been my experience that if someone volunteers for assignment to a fire team, the company would jump at it.

 

 

In this 7 years during the drill maybe only 10 times i needed to go out on deck preparing for evacuating ship! Now you tell me if that don't sound frustrating????You do know that maritime safety training is available in virtually every country that borders the sea, and you could take this training on your own, if you feel that you are not adequately trained.

 

And that's just a beginning I also raise few times question about insufficient water supplies in those rubber "jump in- flouting things " (we do call them jump in and pray flouting things) and only answer i got is "well you need to try to bring us much water us possible with you!" What?Are you implying that the company is not providing the legally required amount of water in the liferafts? The IMO mandates the amount of rations and water in all lifeboats and rafts. Guess what, when you get into a liferaft, this is a survival situation, not a party, so you may not get as much food and water as you are accustomed to in normal life. Liferafts are not "jump in" on cruise ships, they are either davit launched (where you get in the raft at the embarkation deck and are then lowered in the raft to the sea), or MES where there is a designed chute that slows your descent into the raft.

 

 

Lets say ship is sinking everybody are panicking we are abandon ship trying to help to the passengers to get to their life boats and i need to think to carry with me galon or 2 of water? I seriously did not believe what I was told! And you obviously have not paid attention to the safety breifings either when you first come onboard, or during the drills, that explain that the crew does not abandon the ship when the passengers get into the boats. Crew are to remain at their emergency stations after the passengers have evacuated in the boats, until a further signal tells the crew to go to their abandon ship stations.

 

And that was coming from the company sail safe officers, who are coming on board to prepare us for god forbid sityationes???? Other one suggested to bring a condom with us , why you are wandering well to put our mony in side not to get wet! Those were the answers believe or not! I could go on and on but I will stop there!Good, because you are spouting absolute nonsense.

 

 

Other thing is bording like on the video unsafe and pardon me but stupid! I am NOT jumping in free fall from 5th floor building high in to rubber balloon! Once we had test jumping I refused just like many others! One more perfect thing was the fact that 3 but really 3 people jumped and tube broke! It was miserable!Again, I say you have no idea what you are speaking about. If you mean the MES, this is not a "free fall". But I guess the manufacturer has faked the training video, and the IMO and all maritime nations have fallen for this ruse and approved a system that doesn't work.

 

Those things have expiration date and I do believe that company is respecting that, but those thing are exposed to the sun all the time, in metal cylinders god knows are they still ok after 3 years of standing on the deck! First off, all liferafts are required to be taken ashore for inflation and inspection annually, not 3 years.

 

 

Like I said in controlled environment they broke, can you imagine how that would look like with all the people panicking around!What is used for training, is a trainingraft, which since it is not used for emergency situations, may not be inspected as often, but again, this is not emergency equipment, but training equipment.

 

I can tell you many more story's of this kind, but then you will never step foot on the ship and I still need to get my salary ... so sorry! One more thing and I will be done!

I also ask few years ago one question which never got answer! That was if fire is in my emergency station where am I going? Nobody knew to tell me!That would be because it would depend on the particular emergency situation. There is no one answer fits all situations in this case.

 

 

Then on my one i asked high officer and answer was to your muster station ok but there is 400 of crew members then which need to fit in the muster station (small restaurant of 100 seats) in the same time when 900 passengers are arriving because my muster station is passenger muster station too!Sorry, but there is never a crew muster at the same place as a passenger muster station, and each muster station is designed according to IMO regulations with regards to volume in regards to numbers of people, amount of ingress and egress, and distance to boat stations.

 

 

Can you imagine panic of all of those people trying to enter and save them selves? Can you imagine then all of us trying to jump down the tube? Can you imagine 350 people breathing in rubber balloon? Can you imagine if one of those 2 rubber things start to sink? there is only 1 entrance to those things... can you imagine rough sea.... and to finish you tell me are we really safe?Gee, the rest of the maritime world considers these systems to be safe, and have been used in one form or another for years. And yes, I have actually been in a liferaft in the open ocean, and while uncomfortable, it is safe.

 

PS. If you try to complain about this things you are very likely to get fired! They will give you some stupid reason and good bye! So questions are theire and no answers..."

 

As for Sea Dawg's personal observations.

 

Crew on cruise ships have never been assigned to lifeboats, they have always been assigned to liferafts. This is because as I've noted above, the crew does not "abandon ship" when the passengers are evacuated in the boats. The crew remain behind and attempt to further control the situation, and will then be sent to their abandon ship stations when the Captain feels that it is necessary.

 

MES are approved for ship's use by the IMO through SOLAS, and even the USCG accepts these as meeting SOLAS requirements. The fact that a percentage of passengers are assigned to MES is completely legal. This is not a free-fall in a chute, there are baffles in the chute to slow you down.

 

There are also 25% more lifeboat, liferaft, or MES capacity than the maximum total of all souls onboard.

 

The MES are not the "depth charges". Those are crew liferafts. The MES are large white cubes that are interspersed with the lifeboats (two per side, if I remember right).

 

Would there be casualties or fatalities in any evacuation? Sure. In an evacuation a few years back, with all trained mariners, there was a fatality caused by stress on a crew member who had poor health.

 

Can training be improved? Sure. The problem is that regardless of how much training a person has, there is no guarantee that in an emergency situation that person will perform correctly. Firefighters will tell you that you never know whether you will run to the fire or away, until you actually face the beast.

 

While my professional opinion is that US crews are better trained in safety than their international counterparts, I feel that the IMO requirements are quite sufficient to ensure passenger and crew safety.

 

For DocF, the Fitzgerald's lifeboats were never launched, and one at least was smashed in the davits.

[Astro Flyer]

Thanks 'chengkp75'...I always appreciate your informed posts based on your many years of shipboard experience and thanks for sharing factual information with us.

 

I should have waited for you to post your experiences first. :o

 

I take safety at sea seriously & even carry a small flashlight to use if necessary. Too many passengers consider the safety briefings a joke so it's not a surprise when they react poorly in an emergency. Repeated training results in better responses by everyone involved.

 

So many passengers ignore airline safety briefings & react poorly by doing things such as taking their carryon bags in an emergency evacuation. Safety is everyone's responsibility but sadly too many passengers ignore that fact. :(

Edited March 22, 2016 by Astro Flyer

[chengkp75]

Thanks 'chengkp75'...I always appreciate your informed posts based on your many years of shipboard experience and thanks for sharing factual information with us.

 

I should have waited for you to post your experiences first. :o

 

I take safety at sea seriously & even carry a small flashlight to use if necessary. Too many passengers consider the safety briefings a joke so it's not a surprise when they react poorly in an emergency. Repeated training results in better responses by everyone involved.

 

So many passengers ignore airline safety briefings & react poorly by doing things such as taking their carryon bags in an emergency evacuation. Safety is everyone's responsibility but sadly too many passengers ignore that fact. :(

 

I probably should have gone into even more detail to prevent folks from sniping at me, but I was tired last night, and really can only handle so much drivel.

 

The crew member quoted does not sound like someone who has done seven contracts, but more like a self-centered first timer.

 

In virtually every safety training class I've ever been in, regardless of the industry it is catered to, they will invariably tell you that the person most responsible for your safety is "looking back at you in the mirror".

 

Unfortunately, most cruisers look at their cruises as simply a vacation, and "what could possibly go wrong", rather than a vacation at sea.

[moniquet]

Princess, Cunard, RC, HAL, Carnival, all the musters were chaotic. Certainly don't inspire you with confidence. However, I don't dwell on it:)

[agabbymama]

As a cruiser, I attend the muster drills and do pay attention to airline safety drills too.

 

HOWEVER, I worked in a huge aerospace facility and we had Emergency Drills about every 3 months. We got so we could empty the facility in around 7 minutes. Very good results by the trained personnel and the employees. Which at one point was 12,000 people.

 

Fast forward about 15 years and a pretty good earthquake hit. You want to talk chaos???? Everybody was scared, running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I was on vacation so didn't actually see the chaos, but from what I was told by my fellow workers, it took over 3 hours to account for everyone. The lights went out (the facility had no windows), people were left in the restrooms, and some folks got under their desks and wouldn't come out at all.

 

Now you take into consideration we were on land, not at sea. I really don't think any amount of muster drills will quell the chaos & panic if an actual emergency event were to happen at sea.

 

The crew and emergency staff might try to do their jobs, but the 2500 + cruisers, NO WAY! JMHO.

[Sea Dawg]

I love cruising and, like most passengers, focus on enjoying myself rather than give much thought to ship evacuation. The cruise industry cite statistics to support their claim that cruising is the safest mode of transportation, so I take comfort assured most of us may never be summoned to a mid-cruise muster. Some may ascribe to "ignorance is bliss", but life has taught me otherwise. As safe as the designs of the ship may be, recent events have proven cruise ships are not pilot error proof.

 

So I began wondering if maybe I should find out more about cruise ship evacuation. What I discovered (and you can research for yourself) is that experts across the spectrum are reporting valid concerns with current mega cruise ship evacuation equipment and training. I collected some of them and list them below to keep the record straight.

 

Cruise ships operate in a void from the standpoint of oversight and enforcement,” said James E. Hall, a safety management consultant and the chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board between 1994 and 2001. “The industry has been very fortunate until now.”

 

Cruise industry advocates credit the international Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) regime, which has set standards for the industry ever since the RMS Titanic disaster, with ushering in vast and ongoing improvements to ships’ systems, procedures, and training. “You have various life-saving systems,” said Lt. Cmdr. Dan Brehm with the Cruise Ship National Center of Expertise. “First you have evacuation routes as well as life-saving appliances that include lifeboats and life rafts.” According to Brehm, SOLAS requires that every ship must have lifeboat capacity to accommodate at least 75 percent of the ships’ passengers. Additionally, ships must have life rafts for an additional 50 percent of the ship’s capacity. In the best of evacuation scenarios, 25 percent of passengers will be going down the chutes into life rafts.

 

No matter how many standards the International Maritime Organization (IMO) writes, as a UN body it has zero power to enforce them. That responsibility falls to the “flag states,” or countries where the vessels are registered - an arrangement that some U.S. lawmakers find troublesome.

 

“I believe the current international rules governing cruise ship operations and passenger safety protect the companies rather than their passengers,” says Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.). “The standards established by the IMO are not always sufficient. While voluntary industry measures are a positive step, they are not a substitute for robust international standards that protect the health and safety of passengers.”

 

SOLAS regulations are a pro-active action of the International Maritime Organization (IMO) regarding the increasing size of passenger ships and the mounting serious difficulties in safe evacuation of passengers. Safe Return to Port regulations are beginning to affect change of the design process for designers, ship builders, and classification societies. Compliant vessels have to be able to return to port after a casualty case, not exceeding a defined flooding or fire casualty threshold, and provide all persons on board basic services in so-called 'safe areas'.

 

Meanwhile, a string of accidents and fires has heightened concerns about the ability of megaships to handle emergencies or large-scale evacuations at sea. Senator Rockefeller IV introduced legislation that would strengthen federal oversight of cruise lines’ safety procedures and consumer protections. The cruise industry lobbied against the bill.

 

Passenger safety and timely evacuation in an emergency is a growing concern in the maritime insurance industry. Cruise ships can be insured only after they have been certified by one of several private classification societies — companies that conduct inspections on behalf of the insurance industry. Without this certification, no insurance agency will underwrite a vessel. The ships must then undergo an annual inspection and a far more rigorous evaluation to get “re-classed” every five years.

 

In 2007, the M/S Sea Diamond struck a well-marked reef off Santorini and began to sink. Evacuation did not go as planned or drilled. It took three and a half hours to evacuate 1,195 passengers, mostly Americans and Canadians, with serious injuries to four. Two French passengers drowned. Some passengers evacuated via chute into a life raft. Some passengers had to climb down rope ladders from the higher decks. Inquiries discovered many crew members evacuated in lifeboats before all passengers were off the ship.

 

“The idea is that a ship is its own best lifeboat,” said John Hicks, the vice president for global passenger ships at Lloyds Register, the largest ship classification society. “The idea is to do everything to keep the crew and passengers on a vessel.” If it sounds familiar, it is. The White Star Line promoted the concept when building the Titanic.

The RMS Titanic, which sank in 1912 with just over 2,000 persons aboard taking 1,514 lives, was 883 feet long (269 meters) and weighed about 58,000 tons. In terms of space available, the Oasis of the Seas is nearly five times larger than the Titanic. Specifically, the Oasis can hold 225,282 gross registered tons, while the Titanic could hold 46,329 grt.

 

The International Transport Workers’ Federation, which represents seafarers and crew members, has expressed concerns about the evacuation safety and time and suggested the need to limit the number of people aboard ships, depending on where they operate and what search-and-rescue facilities are available. “Experience has cast doubt on the adequacy of existing lifesaving appliances,” the group said in a report. “The current equipment, especially lifeboats and life rafts, has proved to be inadequate when confronted with high sea states.”

 

In 2012, twenty crew members received injuries during a marine evacuation drill aboard the M/S Findlandia cruise ship operated by Eckerö Line in Tallinn. Crew members suffered broken bones and sprained ankles, as well as friction burns caused by trying to slow their descent during their steep drop through a baffled chute down into a life raft in the water. The drill took place while the ship was docked. The drill was suspended only when the Eckerö crew members refused to follow their colleagues down the chute. "The exercise should have been called off as soon as the injuries came," said a representative of a Finnish Transport Safety Agency Trafi. A representative of the Finnish Seamen’s Union stated that the marine evacuation system (MES) used is "unsuitable and dangerous," although it was approved in the European Union. This same MES is now aboard newer European built mega cruise ships.

 

“The simple problem is they are building them too big and putting too many people aboard,” said Capt. William H. Doherty, a former safety manager for Norwegian Cruise Lines, the world’s third-largest cruise operator, and now the director of maritime relations at the Nexus Consulting Group. “My answer is they probably exceeded the point of manageability.” He added, “The magnitude of the problem is much bigger than the cruise industry wants to publicly acknowledge.”

 

Computer modeling is used to demonstrate safe evacuation plans. Computer models do not account for factors like heavy ocean swells, cold water, loss of power, fire, crew and/or passenger panic, the darkness of night — or a situation in which the ship is listing or flooded. “I don’t think regulations have kept up with the increase in capacity,” says Antonio Simoes Re, who heads a research group focused on marine evacuations and rescue at Canada’s National Research Council.

 

Captain Bill Doherty said he believes cruise lines should better prepare for disaster scenarios in a variety of locations. “You’ve got to get out there and you’ve got to physically assess your worst-case scenarios,” he said. “Real time, real people, real hardware drills that clearly identify where the holes are.”

 

Until regulations are adopted requiring them, cruise lines are not likely to voluntarily conduct real time, real people, real hardware emergency evacuation drills.

 

Bon voyage,

SeaDawg

[chengkp75]

I don't believe you read the SOLAS requirement correctly:

 

Here is the pertinent section for passenger vessels:

 

"The Administration may permit the substitution of lifeboats by liferafts of equivalent total capacity provided that there shall never be less than sufficient lifeboats on each side of the ship to accommodate 37.5% of the total number of persons on board." (highlighting mine)

 

Notice that it says 2 x 37.5%, or 75% of total persons on board, not of passengers. I don't know of a cruise ship out there today that has less than a 1:4 crew to passenger ratio.

 

Be that as it may, do you realize that the USCG has approved MES systems for use on US flag ships? So, regardless of what lawmakers feel about the IMO's SOLAS regulations, or flags of convenience, our own USCG, with its own stricter requirements than IMO have accepted MES systems as suitable for passenger evacuation

 

Secondly, your quote that the enforcement of IMO regulations falls on the flag state is not quite complete. Every nation has the right to inspect and ensure that SOLAS regulations are being enforced as a "port state" when the ship is in their port, which is what the USCG does to foreign flag cruise ships in US homeports.

 

The US is a member of the IMO, and has forced regulations through the IMO such as the ISPS code that mandates ship and port security codes, so if Sen. Rockefeller feels that SOLAS is not sufficient, then he should encourage the USCG to propose changes to SOLAS. How else does Sen. Rockefeller expect to have international law, other than through the IMO, to get his "robust international standards"? The US cannot pass laws that apply to foreign countries or their ships. Sen. Rockefeller's vaunted Cruise Ship Passenger Bill of Rights had almost no enforce-ability on the ships, and was voluntarily adopted by CLIA. The Cruise Ship Safety and Security Act also has limited application and enforce-ability on foreign ships. This sounds more like grandstanding than a true effort to get "proper" safety standards passed.

 

You mention the "safe return to port" requirements. All of the newer, large cruise ships meet this requirement. I can only guess at your "string of accidents and fires", but none of my guesses were on ships that meet the safe return requirements.

 

And dragging out the old saw of the Titanic, which was designed and built before SOLAS was created (and was the cause for creation of SOLAS) to a ship designed and built to standards that have been tested and improved over the last century. Do you compare an airliner's safety design to the Wright brothers' plane?

 

I will withhold comment on the injuries on the Finlandia until I am able to see a government investigation report, which was done, to determine the root cause of the problem. I have used these chutes from a height higher than the Finlandia with no problem. And I'm no spring chicken.

 

You mention the classification societies that underwrite the ship's insurance. Yet you fail to state that even the leading classification societies like the American Bureau of Ships (ABS), Det Norske Veritas (DNV), and virtually every class society have approved the capacity of these ships, and the capability to preserve life in emergencies. Not sure what the purpose of that paragraph was, since it somewhat counters your argument.

 

At any rate, you apparently feel unsafe aboard these ships, so why continue to board them. Nothing is "pilot error proof", whether it is your family car, an airliner, a cruise vessel, or the space shuttle. No one has ever said the ships are unsinkable (since the Titanic).

 

If you feel ships need moreUS oversight than the present port state control, then you need to cruise on US flag ships. If you feel that regulations are not strong enough, vote with your pocket book, and only go on US flag ships.

[NurseDave]

Can I just suggest on the larger ships, everyone that likes to do the bungee, water drop, and sky flying activities gets an armband that assigns them the chute to boat route? I'll stick with being slowly winched down please.

[donaldsc]

Why are you worried about a hypothetical perhaps that is extremely unlikely to happen. There are many other things that you do on an everyday or routine basis that are far more likely to kill you than a cruise. Do you fly? If so, they might have to evacuate the plane quickly with idiots on the plane who are trying to get off with their luggage. Do you go into high rise buildings? What are the odds that they could get everyone out if there was a fire in the building. Do you live in an earthquake or volcano prone zone? Same comment.

 

If you have to find things to worry about, there are far more likely to occur than a cruise ship disaster.

 

DON

Edited March 22, 2016 by donaldsc

[Sea Dawg]

Excerpts from this discussion thread "Do you think they could do it?" original post:

 

"Ship evacuation ... If a really disaster was to happen at sea, could the crew and passengers disembark in a timely manner? ... With the age of the cruiser rising, with more walkers and wheelchair bound patrons, could an evacuation ever be successful on such a grand scale? Throw in a little panic, a muster station nose count, chaos of the "event", personalities, languages, etc. ..."

 

Do any of us know the answer?

 

To post that it's not likely to happen is to answer a question the original poster did not ask.

 

My personal answer to the original poster's question, from the information I found, is probably not. There's too high a probability that an emergency disembarkation at sea will not go as planned, engineered, or drilled.

 

Will that keep me from cruising? Definitely not. There's too high a probability that the ship will not require an emergency evacuation at sea.

 

It should be answer enough for most of us that there are individuals with far more credentials, experience, expertise, and positions of influence outside the cruise industry than any of us expressing serious doubts that in an emergency at sea (whether likely or not) a mega cruise ship could evacuate in a safe and timely manner.

 

I am not their spokesperson. Any with questions should ask them directly.

 

Bon voyage,

Sea Dawg

[AKman2495]

On all of th musters I have attended on Princess, they were handled very well. I found the crew very professional and well trained. If there was any chaos, it was due to the passengers,although I never saw any chaos. People were moving but they were going to their assigned muster stations.

 

Princess has a very simple system of muster stations and unless you're a complete idiot, they are not hard to find. Crew members are positioned everywhere and will guide you to the proper station. Stations are marked clearly.

 

At muster we learned that in case of a real emergency, it is important to bring good clothing, your medications and your personal identifications along with your life jackets.

 

I am confident that on Princess, at least, we would survive a dangerous emergency.

[dsrdsrdsr]

I really don't think any amount of muster drills will quell the chaos & panic if an actual emergency event were to happen at sea.

 

The crew and emergency staff might try to do their jobs, but the 2500 + cruisers, NO WAY! JMHO.

 

Why the general assumption that there will be panic in an emergency? Lots of ships have sunk in the past, with very little panic. There wasn't much panic in the Costa Concordia, as far as I remember, apart from the captain. Several of the deaths were of people who very calmly, but foolishly, returned to their cabins to collect things.

 

There was a Greek ship caught fire and sank off South Africa twenty or thirty years back, and the Greek crew never panicked - the very calmly launched the lifeboats and made off on them. The first lifeboat to leave the ship was full, but wasn't carrying a single passenger. (Never sail on a Greek ship!) The captain was the last crew member to leave, claiming that he could best supervise the rescue operation from the shore - and yet half the passengers were still on board. The entertainments staff organised the evacuation, which went smoothly with no panic and no deaths.

 

So let's not assume that there will be panic.

[chengkp75]

 

It should be answer enough for most of us that there are individuals with far more credentials, experience, expertise, and positions of influence outside the cruise industry than any of us expressing serious doubts that in an emergency at sea (whether likely or not) a mega cruise ship could evacuate in a safe and timely manner.

 

I am not their spokesperson. Any with questions should ask them directly.

 

Bon voyage,

Sea Dawg

 

I would say that any discussion you can have, there will be experts with impeccable credentials that hold polar opposite positions (ever been in court?). And you denigrate the idea of the safe return to port (the ship is its own best lifeboat), yet this is attributed to the head of one of the classification societies that you mentioned had to certify the ships in order to get insurance. I guess the insurance companies are out to lose money.

[Nanobot]

I have read this thread and others with a similar topic with interest and wish to point out some information. Before I start, I want to thank chengkp75 for his information and efforts to keep these discussions on an even keel.

 

I have been in the maritime industry for over 35 years and represented my country at dozens of meetings of the International Maritime Organization for over 10 years of my career. This experience includes participation of the Large Passenger Vessel Safety Working Group that was struck as a result of the Herald of Free Enterprise and Estonia disasters. That work over several years looked at all the regulations and the assumptions that were used to build those regulations that affect the safety of large passengers ships, the crew and passengers aboard them, and the management of those ships. That stated, what I want to point out is that a) regulations produced by IMO are reviewed regularly by the experts from member countries; b) every maritime accident is investigated by a Transportation Safety Board that produces recommendations to prevent similar accidents and to improve safety; c) major maritime accidents are reviewed by IMO soon after they occur and any needed changes to regulations are discussed and implemented in a timely manner; and, d) when a country agrees to a regulation it is up to them to enforce it, however, you should know that through IMO a rigorous audit is completed on all member countries on how they comply with the regulations they agreed to enforce.

 

Therefore, the design of these large ships and the training required of ship's crew is taken very seriously to minimize the possibility of an accident and its effects that may lead to abandoment.

[SadieN]

About the Star Princess fire (10 year anniversary today) with a link about the Prinsendam sinking.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2332381

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

Edited March 23, 2016 by SadieN

[chengkp75]

Here's a thread started by someone who was on the Star Princess 10 years ago, when she caught fire. This gives some first hand description of how a crew can act in an actual emergency.

 

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=2332381

 

My appreciation to nanobot for his support in keeping drama and misinformation out of these threads.