Anthem....What if?

[sblair]

Back to the OP, again, you have to look at a ship like those punching clowns. A very small weight at the bottom keeps it coming right back up at you. To repeat my statements in the other thread, even a ship without power, broadside to the seas, without a broach of the hull below the water line, causing free surface water to flow back and forth, will survive nearly every storm. The people onboard may wish they hadn't survived, but the ship will not likely roll over and stay that way, or break up.

 

Happy to answer any other questions, or anything I missed so far on this thread.

 

Thanks for your response, all good info. As the ships keep getting taller (i.e. more boxy) it creates a huge wind load on the ship when it is broadside to the waves, at the same time the width isn't really increasing and the taller the ship is you get more of a torque lever arm at the top trying push it over.

 

Obviously being able to transfer ballast helps as long you have the power to effectively do that still. At what point is the force of the wind going to be too strong though on a ship like Anthem?

 

The design of the ship to me would put it at more risk than older ships in my mind because of the height and wind-loading. At the same time there's been freighters recently that have gone over in the same kinds of circumstances.

[chengkp75]

Thanks for your response, all good info. As the ships keep getting taller (i.e. more boxy) it creates a huge wind load on the ship when it is broadside to the waves, at the same time the width isn't really increasing and the taller the ship is you get more of a torque lever arm at the top trying push it over.

 

Obviously being able to transfer ballast helps as long you have the power to effectively do that still. At what point is the force of the wind going to be too strong though on a ship like Anthem?

 

The design of the ship to me would put it at more risk than older ships in my mind because of the height and wind-loading. At the same time there's been freighters recently that have gone over in the same kinds of circumstances.

 

It's true that the wind heel increases with size of superstructure, but again, it is the relationship between the center of gravity and the center of buoyancy that provides stability. Google metacentric height, to get some insight into ship's stability.

 

If you are referring to the El Faro, I have a personal connection in that I knew one of the officers onboard, so I have researched this a lot, and also have some experience on ships like it. In her case, instead of water shifting the center of gravity, it was shifting cargo that created the list. If everything stays in place, the ship will try to return to upright.

[NoobCruise]

I read quite a few of the personal accounts of the Concordia.

 

Most of the people who died either went back to their cabins to get something, or were crew that tried helping those that went back. One of the things some went back to get were their lifevests, which is partly why some of the lines no longer keep lifevests in the cabins. They keep them at the lifeboats so people don't go back to their cabins for them.

 

As to the lifeboats that got stuck on the high side when the list was too far over.... from the accounts I read, there was a lifeboat with people in that attempted to drop and got stuck. They had to climb back up on deck, then ended up having to climb down the side and bottom of the ship on ropes to get close enough to the water where they could jump.

 

Of course, in the case of the Anthem, lifeboats would have been useless in that storm.

[rolloman]

As usual Cheng, great post. It is my understanding the lifeboats on the new vessels are designed to be unsinkable, hence my comment about being in a drink shaker. I have been out at sea in storms where shipmates suffered broken bones...so I could not imagine what kind of shape one would be in while attempting to survive angry seas in a tiny lifeboat crammed with tens of other people.

 

I also harken back to a few years ago off the coast of Florida when a Carnival ship attempted to lower a boat to save a passenger who jumped. The seas were like bath water, smooth as can be, and they sank the boat attempting to lower it into the water. Fortunately for the passenger a nearby Disney ship came to the rescue. A YouTube video existed at one time but was mysteriously removed. My point is, even in the best situations, it will be risky evacuating the ship in a lifeboat.

[tcrowl6]

Thought so

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Forums mobile app

[chengkp75]

As usual Cheng, great post. It is my understanding the lifeboats on the new vessels are designed to be unsinkable, hence my comment about being in a drink shaker. I have been out at sea in storms where shipmates suffered broken bones...so I could not imagine what kind of shape one would be in while attempting to survive angry seas in a tiny lifeboat crammed with tens of other people.

 

I also harken back to a few years ago off the coast of Florida when a Carnival ship attempted to lower a boat to save a passenger who jumped. The seas were like bath water, smooth as can be, and they sank the boat attempting to lower it into the water. Fortunately for the passenger a nearby Disney ship came to the rescue. A YouTube video existed at one time but was mysteriously removed. My point is, even in the best situations, it will be risky evacuating the ship in a lifeboat.

 

Lifeboats for the last hundred years have been "unsinkable", but that does not mean they will not fill up with water, and you will be sitting in it. Even full of people and water right up to the gunnel, the boat will not sink.

 

Now, most newer cargo ships have "totally enclosed" lifeboats, as compared to the "partially enclosed" boats on the cruise ships. These totally enclosed boats are completely watertight, and everyone in it is seatbelted in place. This is so the center of gravity of the boat doesn't change. If these boats are hit with a wave and completely capsized (upside down), they will right themselves.

 

Launching is not real tricky, but one point someone made about having "way" on the ship is incorrect. If you want to see what happens when you try to launch a small boat with any way on the ship, look at "Whale Wars" where they damn near killed their boat crew by capsizing it during launch. As I say, retrieving is the hard part, so putting a boat over for a man overboard really needs to be thought about. This is why SOLAS requires the fast rescue boats, but these can be very dangerous in significant seaway as well.

 

You better believe that even in calm weather, a lifeboat is not a place you want to be. It is a bathtub full of people bobbing in the ocean. Crowded, hungry, stinking of puke and worse, and no one in sight. I've done my fair share of survival training, including a wonderful afternoon swim 6 miles offshore Halifax, NS, in March, with the seas running 5-6 feet. We had to swim to a liferaft, deploy it and then spend 4 hours in it, just so we would learn how long 4 hours in a raft would feel. I have never been more seasick in my life.

[Magnum60]

Life is surviving risk for as long as one can - but risk is always there. Things that can never happen do happen. If one dwells on all the 'what if's' you might as well live under a rock (which, by the way, has its own risks).

The captain of a ship, pilot of a plane or engineer of a train is taught to control risk. Like us, they want to go home just as much as we do.

Ordinary storms can get ugly without warning but structural engineers design for those scenarios a bit further up the scale than most of us will ever encounter. An old seafarer adage is 'one hand for the rail and one hand for the ship'. In the case of the storm Anthem got caught up in it became two hands for the rail. The ship will be fine.

Look at the bright side, any passenger aboard Anthem during last weeks 'adventure' will likely never ever again encounter the conditions they experienced and should be able to cruise on calm seas for the rest of their lives.

[navybankerteacher]

The simple fact that Anthem returned safely to port and has been cleared by the Coast Guard as seaworthy indicates that the hysteria in many of the posts on this, and other threads, was misplaced - and based on over-dramatized reports.

 

No significant damage, no significant injuries: yes, an unpleasant aborted cruise - but really a tempest in a teapot.

[LMaxwell]

The simple fact that Anthem returned safely to port and has been cleared by the Coast Guard as seaworthy indicates that the hysteria in many of the posts on this, and other threads, was misplaced - and based on over-dramatized reports.

 

No significant damage, no significant injuries: yes, an unpleasant aborted cruise - but really a tempest in a teapot.

 

Not sure I full agree with you that it is just a tempest in a teapot. This thread is about "what if". Of course these were conditions far beyond what was forecast, and any ship would have struggled in the same. But the "what if" boils down to this; if steering ability during the storm was lost things would have become dire very quickly. I don't think many people have an appreciation for just how fine of a line it probably was. As long as you had power and steering capability things would likely have been relatively fine, but remove those even for a brief period...scary to think about.

[chengkp75]

Not sure I full agree with you that it is just a tempest in a teapot. This thread is about "what if". Of course these were conditions far beyond what was forecast, and any ship would have struggled in the same. But the "what if" boils down to this; if steering ability during the storm was lost things would have become dire very quickly. I don't think many people have an appreciation for just how fine of a line it probably was. As long as you had power and steering capability things would likely have been relatively fine, but remove those even for a brief period...scary to think about.

 

What if? is fine for designers, so they think out all the possible scenarios. In real life, it's what happened, or what didn't happen. Anthem came no where near to losing propulsion or steering, and the pod was for sure not shut down until the Captain no longer needed it. If it had been needed, it would have been run to destruction to keep the ship and all souls safe.

 

I mean, you can what if anything, and do it to ridiculous extremes. What if you are crossing a parking lot and a bus full of school kids loses its brakes, and there is a propane truck blocking your only way to run.

 

And as I've stated on several threads about capsizing ships, even broadside to the wind and waves, while the humans might not fare all that well (sick for sure and injured perhaps), the ship would have survived. Again, I reference the SS Badger State as an example of the many abandoned ships that survive storms. She was older, built to different standards, with a lower main (promenade) deck than Anthem, and with a big hole in the side from a bomb.

[navybankerteacher]

Not sure I full agree with you that it is just a tempest in a teapot. This thread is about "what if". Of course these were conditions far beyond what was forecast, and any ship would have struggled in the same. But the "what if" boils down to this; if steering ability during the storm was lost things would have become dire very quickly. I don't think many people have an appreciation for just how fine of a line it probably was. As long as you had power and steering capability things would likely have been relatively fine, but remove those even for a brief period...scary to think about.

 

Again - Anthem was not floating along that "fine of a line". A sound ship encountered heavy weather and returned to port early (with the primary motivation as likely being a wish to not jeopardize the following itinerary as any real safety concern), end of real story.

 

If you insist upon playing "what if", why limit yourself to not-very-likely failures of ship's systems: why not include terrorist activity, mutiny of crew due to dissatisfaction with tips, temporarily malfunctioning magnetic mines laid by U-Boats in 1942 suddenly bobbing to the surface? There are shiploads of "ifs".

[LMaxwell]

If you insist upon playing "what if", why limit yourself to not-very-likely failures of ship's systems: why not include terrorist activity, mutiny of crew due to dissatisfaction with tips, temporarily malfunctioning magnetic mines laid by U-Boats in 1942 suddenly bobbing to the surface? There are shiploads of "ifs".

 

There are what ifs that are certainly within the realm of possibility and there are what ifs that are purely fantasy. Playing "what if" in regards to questioning how long a subsystem will operate in strenuous conditions, and the ramifications of it failing is certainly in the realm of real potentialities. 75 year old U boats is pure fantasy. But probably would make for a good Clive Cussler vacation book:)

[chengkp75]

There are what ifs that are certainly within the realm of possibility and there are what ifs that are purely fantasy. Playing "what if" in regards to questioning how long a subsystem will operate in strenuous conditions, and the ramifications of it failing is certainly in the realm of real potentialities. 75 year old U boats is pure fantasy. But probably would make for a good Clive Cussler vacation book:)

 

While a U-boat is fantasy, what NBT mentioned were sea mines layed by a sub. To this day, the Royal Navy produces a poster that shows various types of sea mines and unexploded ordnance from WWI (1914) on, that continue to pop up in the English Channel and North Sea. Trawlers are most susceptible to these dangers, but when I worked oil rigs in the North Sea, we had one of the posters in the bridge.

[LMaxwell]

While a U-boat is fantasy, what NBT mentioned were sea mines layed by a sub. To this day, the Royal Navy produces a poster that shows various types of sea mines and unexploded ordnance from WWI (1914) on, that continue to pop up in the English Channel and North Sea. Trawlers are most susceptible to these dangers, but when I worked oil rigs in the North Sea, we had one of the posters in the bridge.

 

Wow, that's pretty interesting! Have there been any accidents caused by that?

[chengkp75]

Wow, that's pretty interesting! Have there been any accidents caused by that?

 

None that I can think of recently. Back then, a trawler found a mine in its net, towed it to the shallows, and cut the net. They informed the RN of the location, and a minesweeper was sent out. Apparently, they were so intent on finding the mine that they ran into one of the lightships positioned out there.

 

Just another trivia note, there is a ship sunk in the Thames from WWII that is just chock full of explosives, around Gravesend, if I remember right. All ships are required to pass at "dead slow" to prevent any wakes causing shifting of the wreck. Apparently, they cannot salvage it safely, and so the RN dives on it annually to see how bad it's corrosion is getting. That's pretty scary.

[rolloman]

And as I've stated on several threads about capsizing ships, even broadside to the wind and waves, while the humans might not fare all that well (sick for sure and injured perhaps), the ship would have survived. Again, I reference the SS Badger State as an example of the many abandoned ships that survive storms. She was older, built to different standards, with a lower main (promenade) deck than Anthem, and with a big hole in the side from a bomb.

 

Agreed, but of course we have the anomaly example of the recent EL Faro sinking last year in the Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin. Personally, I always make it a practice to never say never......

[chengkp75]

Agreed, but of course we have the anomaly example of the recent EL Faro sinking last year in the Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin. Personally, I always make it a practice to never say never......

 

Well, the El Faro experienced one of the conditions that I said couldn't be violated to keep the ship upright. Her center of gravity shifted. The vehicular cargo broke it's lashings, started sliding into other vehicles, breaking their lashings, and eventually sliding to the "down" side away from the wind. This change in center of gravity caused the ship to be "stable" in the new listing position. The problem is that boilers are not designed to operate when listing (they sense a low water level and shut down or carry over water to the turbines), so the ship lost power. Now, because she had developed a new "normal" orientation, listing, when a wave then rolled her to a point where no water should have entered the ship had it been upright, that opening was lower to the water in the listing condition, so she started to downflood. Actually, looking back over this thread, I see that may have been on a different thread. Anyway, to keep a ship upright, all you need to do is keep everything in place (heavy objects) (center of gravity) and keep from taking on water, which induces free surface effect, lowering the stability. El Faro had one of those happen which led to the other. I'm not sure, even with the reported wind speed, that broadside to Anthem would have rolled enough to put the promenade deck under and start flooding. According to accounts, the Captain turned the ship around at some time during the storm, so for a short period, she was broadside to, and reports here on CC uphold this, and still say it was maybe a 20-25* roll.

[BARNET]

The Insight that I posted at Post 45 was from 23 years in the Royal Navy. I started it by saying that I debated if to post or not and it was posted as IMO. No doubt there is vast difference to the way military and merchant seaman work at sea when launching and recovering ship boats.

[navybankerteacher]

Wow, that's pretty interesting! Have there been any accidents caused by that?

 

Not by mines so far - but it exists as a possibility. During both World Wars hundreds of thousands of delayed release mines were laid, along with all sorts of other weaponry. If you look closely at navigation charts you will see areas with the warning "unexploded ordinance" noted. In July 1918 the US cruiser San Diego was sunk by a German mine a few miles south of Fire Island light - just east of New York. It is unlikely that the Kaiser sent a U-boat thousands of miles to lay just one mine. There are probably millions of pieces of unexploded weaponry lying on the sea bed over which cruise ships sail.

 

Age does not diminish the lethality of such weaponry. Recently a German digging up a road was killed when his equipment hit a bomb dropped by the RAF seventy-some years ago. A few years ago a Virginia man who collected Civil War relics was cleaning what he may have thought was solid shot he had dug up from the Petersburg area (left over from the trench warfare from early summer 1864 until April 1865) - it was a shell - which exploded, killing him and embedding fragments in nearby houses.

 

This is not to suggest in any way that REAL risk of such nature threatens cruise ships -- but as long as "WHAT IFFERS" want to worry about storms at sea, they might want to contemplate other potential hazards.

[Capt_BJ]

the SOLAS requirement I find for Passenger ships:

 

Modern passenger ships engaged on international voyages ... must carry partially or totally enclosed lifeboats on each side to accommodate not less than 50% of the total number of persons on board (in other words, the two sides together must equal at least 100%.) Some lifeboats can be substituted by liferafts. In addition, inflatable or rigid liferafts to accommodate at least 25% of the total number of persons on board. Sufficient lifeboats and life rafts of such capacity as to accommodate 125% of the total number of people on board.

[Capt_BJ]

Well, the El Faro experienced one of the conditions that I said couldn't be violated to keep the ship upright. Her center of gravity shifted. The vehicular cargo broke it's lashings, started sliding into other vehicles, breaking their lashings, and eventually sliding to the "down" side away from the wind. This change in center of gravity caused the ship to be "stable" in the new listing position

 

we don't know what really happened on El Faro other than in the end she sank. A better example might be Cougar Ace, of which I already posted a picture showing her 6o degree list.

 

 

 

This condition came to be when a crew member made an error while shifting liquids in the ships tanks - fuel and ballast, Everything was in an unstable condition unknown to everyone until something tipped the bucket and the ship reached its new equilibrium .... the ship actually became relatively stable in this condition and was towed hundreds of miles in Alaskan waters, reboarded and returned to an even keel. In this case virtually no cargo shifted. Had cargo begun to shift it is likely the ship would have fully capsized .... achieving a stable condition with the wrong end pointing up ...

 

IMO in both ANTHEM and Norw' DAWN cases it is important to note that the damage happened mostly while the master tried to stay on the original course and presumably schedule. When my ship started taking damage due to sea conditions we'd "heave to" or at least change speed and or course to find a better ride. Moderns commercial shipping does not seem to endorse this option as it costs $$ in time and fuel and unhappy customers. On the other hand there were situations where we turned to the worst possible course and made the best speed we could, damage be damned (up to a point) ...... I think there's a movie aout about such a situation . . .

 

Norw DAWN problems according to NTSB were poor seamanship .... exactly what I expect to see from and ANTEM report

Edited February 15, 2016 by Capt_BJ