Escape back early

[lfreda]

Wonder why the Escape is already back in NY at 2:30am...very early

 

[JPL1966]

Bad weather?

[lfreda]

No weather is fine in NY. 

[1bets1]

I hope all is ok. 

[shof515]

The past few weeks the Escape been getting back early, like around 2-3am. I got a feeling the issue is thats when the low tide occurs that they need to sail under the bridge

[bobsfamily]

Someone has the "free" airfare that has a 7am flight out!

[lfreda]

43 minutes ago, shof515 said:

The past few weeks the Escape been getting back early, like around 2-3am. I got a feeling the issue is thats when the low tide occurs that they need to sail under the bridge

That makes sense. 

[lfreda]

11 minutes ago, bobsfamily said:

Someone has the "free" airfare that has a 7am flight out!

That's funny!

[xfkzjg1]

Next Sunday, 8/25, the afternoon high tide had Fort Wadsworth is at 3:50pm and the next low tide is at 10:59pm. (https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/noaatidepredictions.html?id=8519024&units=standard&bdate=20190801&edate=20190831&timezone=LST/LDT&clock=12hour&datum=MLLW&interval=hilo&action=monthlychart).

 

To those who understand marine navigation much better than I do, does that suggest that the Escape will be "late" leaving NY next week?

[AL3XCruise]

9 minutes ago, xfkzjg1 said:

To those who understand marine navigation much better than I do, does that suggest that the Escape will be "late" leaving NY next week?

It might be the bridge but I think Escape has clearance even at high tide. More likely the want to dock close to the slack current.  Last time I was on Escape the Captain mentioned NYC is the most challenging docking because the ship is perpendicular to a relatively strong current.  In addition, it extends slightly beyond the pier.

 

Slack current was around 1:30am this morning, meaning that would be the easiest time to dock.  All other things being equal, the Captain may have elected to arrive early to take advantage of this.  A 5 or 6 am arrival would have seen a much stronger current.

[mking8288]

Looking at her schedule for this October/November, the Escape is doing 5 days Bermuda run and also, a 4 day Bermuda round-trip out of NY ... going to be running on all engines at top speed to do that distance to sail and dock, regardless of tide & river currents on the Hudson.  Gem has been routinely coming in in the pre-dawn hours lately, nothing unusual about it (aside from the occassional onboard medical emergencies, short of a medevac ... passengers had been unloaded via boats once it get into NY's harbor, typically off the VZ Bridge by FD, PD or USCG patrol vessels.)

 

Maybe, the Escape got a nice boost with tailwind.  It's not that pax can leave the ship early - porters are not available until/after 7 a.m. regardless, after CBP is ready along with other authorities upon clearing the ship for passengers & crew to disembark.  Casino & duty-free shops shutting down late night, earlier ahead of scheduled arrival.  

 

Once she's docked, perhaps, extended maintenance over a longer duration can be done below deck.  This is a good question to ask the ship's officers at their next M&G gathering or "ask the officers" onboard session.  

[Turtles06]

1 hour ago, AL3XCruise said:

Last time I was on Escape the Captain mentioned NYC is the most challenging docking because the ship is perpendicular to a relatively strong current.  In addition, it extends slightly beyond the pier.

 

Last August, the Carnival Horizon so damaged Pier 90 while docking that the ship we were on at the time still could not dock there a few weeks later, and we were bumped to Brooklyn. 

[shof515]

18 minutes ago, Turtles06 said:

 

Last August, the Carnival Horizon so damaged Pier 90 while docking that the ship we were on at the time still could not dock there a few weeks later, and we were bumped to Brooklyn. 

 

I was on the Carnival Sunrise a few months ago. I am amazed at how close they have to come to the other pier to make the  tight turn into the pier that i was thought we were going to be crashing into the pier. It can be a scary optical illusion

[Turtles06]

2 hours ago, shof515 said:

I was on the Carnival Sunrise a few months ago. I am amazed at how close they have to come to the other pier to make the  tight turn into the pier that i was thought we were going to be crashing into the pier. It can be a scary optical illusion

 

Indeed.  Here's the Celebrity Silhouette turning into Pier 88 last November.

 

 

(photo by turtles06)

 

[PelicanBill]

@AL3XCruise has it right.  It's not the height of the tide, but the current.  If there is any slack in the schedule the ships will choose to come in when the current is not strongly in outflow down the Hudson River.  That does make the turn harder, and we see tugs often being used to get the ship into berth which slows docking down.

 

Last year, Breakaway was 14 hours late returning to NYC because of a medical evac sailing route change. On top of that, the ship had to station keep in the lower harbor for 2 hours waiting for the current to ease up.  We boarded at 10pm and sailed at 6am the next morning ... still 14 hours late!

[tomk3212]

@PelicanBill We were on the Breakaway!!  We SAW all you folks waiting to board as we were getting off!!  I hope NCL told you that we were going to be late!!

 

We actually had several issues:

 

1) We had to make a radical course change due to a medical emergency that made us about 8 hours late to start with.  They set up telephone lines so pax could call & change their flights, make hotel reservations, etc.  HUGE mess, believe me!!!  They revised our arrival in NYC to around 5PM  with this original delay

 

2) As we approached NY harbor we had to answer a distress call from another ship, a "man overboard" emergency.  According to the Master ANY ship in the area has to stop & render whatever assistance they are able to.  This added another couple of hours to the issue.

 

3) Just as we got to the Verrazano Bridge we had to stop in Staten Island to offload the medical emergency pax we had aboard.  Then we had to wait for the slack tide for us to actually dock.  More time late.  We were originally scheduled to dock at 5PM or so and ended up finally docking around 9PM.

 

Breakaway gave us a full lunch & breakfast but started shutting down the food services around 4PM since they had originally planned to dock around 5PM.  Communications between the Bridge & pax was sadly lacking during this entire turn of events.

[hvcruiser_1]

On 8/18/2019 at 2:46 AM, lfreda said:

Wonder why the Escape is already back in NY at 2:30am...very early

 

We were on this trip - we were actually just off the coast around midnight - strong tail winds they said. Not sure how long this has been going on but they were using TSA facial recognition getting off the boat - was a bit of a jam up as folks in front of us had to be scanned several times - but it wasn't horrible.

[PelicanBill]

2 hours ago, tomk3212 said:

@PelicanBill We were on the Breakaway!!  We SAW all you folks waiting to board as we were getting off!!  I hope NCL told you that we were going to be late!!

 

We actually had several issues:

...

 

Oh cool!  We were in the Holiday Inn Express breakfast area all afternoon and evening getting reports from all over and publishing them to about 500 who were plugged in to the channels we were using to communicate.  Included some people on the ship with you and yes we knew about each one of the items delaying you... an unbelievable series of events!  We ended up missing our first port (San Juan) and then switching from Costa Maya to Cozumel at 9pm the night before due to our own medical evacuation .. a transfer to a Mexico Navy ship from Cancun.  What a zoo to change to a new port with no notice, but not as much as your zoo was!

 

1 hour ago, hvcruiser_1 said:

We were on this trip - we were actually just off the coast around midnight - strong tail winds they said. Not sure how long this has been going on but they were using TSA facial recognition getting off the boat - was a bit of a jam up as folks in front of us had to be scanned several times - but it wasn't horrible.

 

So you arrived early and conditions were right to head on in! Thanks for the report on facial recognition being installed. I was wondering when that would arrive in the Manhattan port.  They had it in Bayonne when we returned there in June on Anthem.. but it seemed to work and the lines were speedy.  We did not get to use it as we were with a porter so we got taken to the line with a person.

 

[chengkp75]

3 hours ago, hvcruiser_1 said:

strong tail winds they said

More likely than tail winds is that they found the "sweet spot" in the Gulf Stream, which can give a boost of 6-8 knots heading north.

 

And, yes, docking is easiest at slack water (when the tide is turning) or slightly into the flood tide so the tide cancels out some of the current.  The problem is that once the bow is "behind" the upriver pier, it is no longer influenced by the current, so the propulsive forces the ship was using to keep the bow pointed in the right direction, are no longer opposed by anything, so the bow won't swing away from the upriver pier, and like the Carnival ship, the bow punches into the pier.

Edited August 19, 2019 by chengkp75