Cruise Ship Hits Dock and Boat In Venice

I agree Those ships are just too big for the area. Who wants to see a giant ship when looking over the piazza.
 
We categorically refuse to ride on ships that size. The largest we have been on is a HAL boat named Prinsendam. It only carries 700+ passengers. We won't go back to or on any boat that docks in the U.S.. By docking in the U.S. they enable passengers that are incapable of moving about without assistance, or are otherwise infirm. At every stop that boat made they took people off and put them in ambulances. It was the worst cruise we had ever been on. Infirm people regularly attempted to board the tenders and made a mess of the process. IMHO crew should have turned people away from tender serviced ports of call.

While on that cruise we were docked and another ship pulled in next to us and I thought it was a solar eclipse.

But all of this "economy of scale" crap is hitting all of the tourist destinations. Places like Bora Bora have been completely over built. We were there in 1995 and again in 2017. In 22 years the amount of over water bungalows out on the moto's has exploded. And they were all empty.
 
Supposedly, there was a mechanical failure. Something got locked up and instead of engines slowing down, they speeded up according to one report I read.
 
When I was learning how to operate a boat ( and again, learning to drive a car ) the mantra was "always have an out". That is, "when" it all goes South, you need an alternate route to escape.

Bringing these sea monsters into close quarters would seem to invalidate that idea. If something goes wrong, you are just plain stuck with it.
 
I’ve lost reversing just after checking backing bells in close quarters. It happens. Rarely, but sometime the mechanical and/or electrical gremlins conspire against you. In my case I could quickly kill both mains and have someone damned near dive at the anchor locker to drop the hook at free fall x2, and with some fancy linehandling got her safely alongside with no damage. I think it’s safe to say the contingencies can’t happen that fast on a massive cruise ship.
 
Last cruise ship I was on weighed in over 225,000 tons. That's twice the weight of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier. Not something that's going to stop on a dime.
 
Surprising the engineers in the ER could not manually override any control problem or at least shut the engines. Wonder if that cattle ship has shafts or pods

What is odd is that they had two tugs, incl one at the bow. You d think they could have steered it away from the tour boat.
 
quote:
Originally posted by PascalG

Surprising the engineers in the ER could not manually override any control problem or at least shut the engines. Wonder if that cattle ship has shafts or pods

What is odd is that they had two tugs, incl one at the bow. You d think they could have steered it away from the tour boat.

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Pascal:

"CATTLE SHIP"

nearly spilled my coffee - REALLY !

LMFAO !!!!!!!

RWS
 
They had two tugs but the aft tug's line snapped when he tried to back to slow the ship. I've been on that dock and indeed boated in that lagoon. It is too small of an area for these size ships. I am sure there is a desire to minimize costs by minimizing the number and size of tugs. A realistic and safe solution needs to be addressed if these size ships are going to dock in Venice.
 
quote:
Originally posted by PascalG

Wonder if that cattle ship has shafts or pods?

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I'm guessing just about all cruise ships build in the past 30+ years are pods. Not many left with shafts, if any.
 
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