Live from Celebrity Millennium Panama Canal Oct. 27 (15 night) aka “Let’s Just Leave the Lifeboat”

[janetmojo]

Howdy from the lovely Celebrity Millennium!  I’m lucky that this is my third cruise on this ship since Covid so I thought I would do some general postings from what I believe is the longest revenue cruise on any line since Covid shut things down.  
 

Before I start I have to relay something kind of funny that happened last evening after our first port stop in Cabo San Lucas.  Being a tender port they used some of the lifeboats to taxi us to shore.  It was a very nice (although hot) day in town and fairly busy with 4 ships in port.  I was a little surprised.  Well at the end of the evening after getting everyone back onboard they were loading the lifeboats back onto the ship.  While I’m not sure of the exact failure I believe the hook and clip that are used to attach the cable that is used to hoist the boat back up broke and the lifeboat, as the Captain said “it crashed back to the sea”.  Of course no one was on it and it appeared to be generally undamaged.  
 

I was watching for awhile, at first a bunch of engineering types were on deck looking like they might fashion something of a repair but then after an hour or so they just sort of stood around looking down at it.  In the meantime we couldn’t leave bc I mean you can’t just abandon the large lifeboat?  At half capacity it’s not needed but Millennium isn‘t coming back to this port until next April on the next Panama Canal crossing.  
 

As my husband and I enjoyed our cocktails watching the slightly panicked folks trying to figure out what to do we debated a couple things.  Could we tow it?  Doubtful.  Could someone drive it to our next port and then figure out how to fix it?  Unlike reality tv I don’t suppose there is just a spare part laying around ready to make the repair.

 

Well finally we saw them start removing everything from the lifeboat.  The life jackets, the paddles (paddles???), first aid kits, I mean everything that wasn’t nailed down and maybe some stuff that was was removed from the boat.  The captain came onboard and announced we were leaving it in the Marina in Cabo.  Really????

 

So about 45 mins later or so after the driver of the empty boat was returned to the ship via water taxi we left and we waved goodbye to the lifeboat.  Luckily we are booked on the return trip next April so I’ll let you know when we pick it back up in 2022.

 

I’ll be posting some additional info as we go along but I just wanted to start with that interesting story live from the ship.  I also welcome questions!

[SJSULIBRARIAN]

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

[mahdnc]

Enjoy your cruise. We are hoping to take this trip someday. 

[Homosassa]

We had a similar experience on HAL.

 

In our case, we were picking up a lifeboat left for repairs by a HAL sister ship.

 

Our ship had left a lifeboat with the sister ship before departing our embarkation port and the repaired lifeboat was placed in that lifeboat's spot on our ship.

 

The Captain explained for the benefit of the armchair row boat admirals on board that the ship carried lifesaving equipment in excess of that needed for a full contingent of crew and passengers to cover any damaged equipment.

 

There was no problem sailing without the missing lifeboat.

 

It may not be the Millennium that  retrieves the lifeboat that was left behind.

[FLCruiser97]

janetmojo..thanks so much for doing the "live from". I've been waiting for someone to do this. I was following you on the RC for the last week or so. We are on for the Thanksgiving cruise on 25 Nov. so any and all comments, pics and menus would be greatly appreciated. Have a great sailing....OBTW, did you happen to hear what the pax count is?

[gerelmx]

Isn't passenger safety compromised by missing a lifeboat?

[emmas gran]

4 minutes ago, gerelmx said:

Isn't passenger safety compromised by missing a lifeboat?

Surely not unless they have a full passenger load.

[Algebralovr]

16 minutes ago, gerelmx said:

Isn't passenger safety compromised by missing a lifeboat?

Celebrity (and all Royal Caribbean Group) carries extra lifeboats beyond what is needed, even at full capacity.  While they assign lifeboats based on muster station, they are aware that only half the boats might be accessible due to positioning of the ship, and even fewer than half at times

[djh]

A similar incident occurred on our RCL cruise several years ago.  We were watching a crew drill in Charleston. A lifeboat escaped and was floating upside down in Charleston harbor and a local dragged the damaged lifeboat ashore. We were then delayed at port for several hours until the coast guard determined there were adequate lifeboats for the passengers onboard.  I believe that they were not able to pick up the boat for six weeks or so.

[susiesan]

Someone should note what the obstructed view cabin number is  where the missing lifeboat was hanging as it is now not obstructed. This would be a good deal on an outside cabin with a full view now.

[canderson]

9 hours ago, janetmojo said:

While I’m not sure of the exact failure I believe the hook and clip that are used to attach the cable that is used to hoist the boat back up broke and the lifeboat, as the Captain said “it crashed back to the sea”.  Of course no one was on it and it appeared to be generally undamaged. 

People are worried about safety sailing without 1 life boat?  I'd be a whole lot more worried about a failure that, had anyone been ON that lifeboat, could have proved a heck of a lot more dangerous.  Am picturing the after-action report and what the wonks back in Miami are now thinking with regard to additional inspections of M-Class lifeboat rigging!

 

Whew - good thing it dropped with no one aboard, rare as that might be.

[Ipeeinthepools]

5 hours ago, canderson said:

People are worried about safety sailing without 1 life boat?  I'd be a whole lot more worried about a failure that, had anyone been ON that lifeboat, could have proved a heck of a lot more dangerous.  Am picturing the after-action report and what the wonks back in Miami are now thinking with regard to additional inspections of M-Class lifeboat rigging!

 

Whew - good thing it dropped with no one aboard, rare as that might be.

I’m also on this cruise and I’m not sure how people got on the first lifeboat in the water, the subsequent boats did not have anyone on board when they lowered them to the water.  The was a tender from shoreside in Cabo, maybe they used that tender to put people in the first tender on the water.  The issue in this case is that the large pulley that attaches the cable to the lifeboat went to the bottom of the Pacific so there was no way to attach the lifeboat.  In this case the end that failed was the end attached to the cable to the ship.  I’m not sure if the cable broke or the clamps on the cable failed.  Hopefully they have inspected the rigging on the other lifeboats.

[twins_to_alaska]

Aren’t the tenders always in the water when folk get off and on?

[Ipeeinthepools]

6 minutes ago, twins_to_alaska said:

Aren’t the tenders always in the water when folk get off and on?

 

No, if the tender was being used as a lifeboat people will be on the boat as it’s lowered to the water.  If the cable broke when it was loaded with people, it could have been a dangerous situation.   In this case the crew was not onboard when it was lowered for use as a tender.

[twins_to_alaska]

Ah, I had just been thinking of tendering. OK, that's scary. Hopefully checking all the cables.

[Ipeeinthepools]

Here’s a view from my balcony as they worked to straighten out the mess after the accident 

Edited October 31, 2021 by Ipeeinthepools

[Benthayer Gonbak]

I remember a drill where a tender with crew fell,irrc there were some deaths —-  not good to imagine the what ifs, but then that’s what’s safety is about. 

[FLCruiser97]

Can anybody onboard give us an update on the actual sailing? Like where are you guys now? Are there any Halloween festivities planned. Just wanting to know. 

[Ipeeinthepools]

Working to attach some winches to the lifeboat supports 

[Ipeeinthepools]

The winch broke, time for plan B.   My engineering analysis suggested this wouldn’t work because they were not pulling vertically. 

[LGW59]

7 minutes ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

The winch broke, time for plan B.   My engineering analysis suggested this wouldn’t work because they were not pulling vertically. 

Unfortunate incident but must be very interesting to watch it live.

[mahdnc]

23 minutes ago, Ipeeinthepools said:

Working to attach some winches to the lifeboat supports 

 

Fall protection seems a little lacking for the guy on the scaffold.

[Ipeeinthepools]

Plan B  is to use 3 winches.  One support has started to move but it’s not certain that this will continue to work as the support rises.  They are now working to lift the other support in the same fashion 

[Ipeeinthepools]

Time for dinner 

[DCPIV]

This is quite an account!

 

How is Millennium? I'm scheduled to come on board the day y'all pull into Fort Lauderdale.