"Cruise ship Fiasco"
#16
The last ship I served in, was steam turbine driven. Her boilers were fired with "Navy Distillate", virtually JP-5 jet fuel !!

At about 02:30 hours on a Sunday morning, the general alarm sounded, and we all went to General Quarters.

A fuel line, in the forward fireroom had cracked, and was spraying "atomized" jet fuel into a space containing two 1200 lb/sq in steam boilers fully fired and making steam.

There would have never been an S.O.S.,and , because we were "independent steaming" at the time, no one would have known that we had "gone missing" until we failed to show up later that day.

The young sailors on watch, in that fireroom, reacted exactly the way they were trained to react, and shut down the fuel supply, and ventilated the fireroom, preventing the explosion that would have sent us, and the two remaining halves of the ship, straight to the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.

Maybe "Cruise lines", and the crews of "Cruise Ships", should be trained, and regularly practice emergency procedures to prevent what happened aboard Triumph, Yes !!!!! IT IS PREVENTABLE !! I am here today writing this, because it is preventable.
The big problem here, however, is that "prevention", is perceived by "Corporate" as "hurting Profit".
We always learn far more from our own mistakes, than we will ever learn from another's advice.
The greatest place to live life, is on the sharp leading edge of a learning curve.
Lead me not into temptation.....I can find it myself!
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#17
I can understand with the fact that this ship is older, that they don't have a distribution panel that would meet today's standards. I can also understand why the backup generators are only designed to provide emergency power for evacuation purposes, assuming that the main generators would never fail. What I don't understand is that no one ever though "What if?", regarding a situation like this. In other words, why wasn't this ship updated to today's standards to deal with a situation like this?

I just wonder,let's assume that the crew had the training that Sumpter is talking about, but also had the cleverness of a McGiver or the A-Team, they would have found a way to get the generators going and a way to bypass the burned-out panel, if of course, that was the problem in the first place. Would a couple of experts dropped on deck from a helicopter have saved the day? We can only speculate.

Let's face it, the bottom line is everything in the corporate world. They saved a few million in update costs, but I'm guessing their losses will be in the billions by the time this is over. Ship cleanup and repairs, refunds, cost of getting passengers home, canceled cruises, lawsuits and lastly, a very tarnished reputation. Let's face it, their response was less than stellar.
Don (ezdays) Day
Board administrator and
founder of the CANYON STATE RAILROAD
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#18
ezdays Wrote:Let's face it, the bottom line is everything in the corporate world. They saved a few million in update costs, but I'm guessing their losses will be in the billions by the time this is over. Ship cleanup and repairs, refunds, cost of getting passengers home, canceled cruises, lawsuits and lastly, a very tarnished reputation. Let's face it, their response was less than stellar.
Cheers Especially considering they've already had two black eyes. And not only that, auditors and probably regulators require somebody at headquarters to be developing contingency plans for any such operation. I know, I had to do that sometimes before I went on permanent vacation. If the Carnival Board has any integrity, there should be an investigation, and their attorneys should be drawing up severance packages for a number of key players.
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#19
jwb Wrote:
ezdays Wrote:Let's face it, the bottom line is everything in the corporate world. They saved a few million in update costs, but I'm guessing their losses will be in the billions by the time this is over. Ship cleanup and repairs, refunds, cost of getting passengers home, canceled cruises, lawsuits and lastly, a very tarnished reputation. Let's face it, their response was less than stellar.
Cheers Especially considering they've already had two black eyes. And not only that, auditors and probably regulators require somebody at headquarters to be developing contingency plans for any such operation. I know, I had to do that sometimes before I went on permanent vacation. If the Carnival Board has any integrity, there should be an investigation, and their attorneys should be drawing up severance packages for a number of key players.

I always question the wisdom of some corporate leaders. Take the Remington 700 rifle. There is a questionable trigger mechanism that can cause the gun to fire on its own. I was watching a program about this a while back and the designer said that a fix would have cost the company about another five cents to implement from the get-go. The didn't do anything and now after a million or more guns sold, they are faced with a series of lawsuits. The spent more on one lawyer than it would have cost to do it right in the first place.

I also remember a while back when one of the auto companies were being sued for something and it was reveled that they had decided early on that it would be cheaper to settle a few lawsuits than fix the problem in the first place.

There will be lawsuits galore stemming from this cruise fiasco, and a few lawyers will wind up fairly rich over it.
Don (ezdays) Day
Board administrator and
founder of the CANYON STATE RAILROAD
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#20
jwb Wrote:
ezdays Wrote:There will be lawsuits galore stemming from this cruise fiasco, and a few lawyers will wind up fairly rich over it.

No doubt there will be, and nothing much will change. There is limited scope to change the designs/modify the existing fleets to have the 'split' power distribution systems, but the good news is that the newer designs are. Also, the general consensus is that your best lifeboat is the ship itself. Therefore, survivability of the actual ship is being studied and designs adapted to make this more and more the case, however, yes it is a business, not a navy. Therefore there will be corporate decisions made, based on what the coastguard tells them to do, and their shareholders want. Hopefully with the recent incidents, the shareholders will see it hurts their profits, and will allign their thinking with that of the coastguards and insurance companies...
But as always, something has to happen first, before action is taken, despite sometimes loud protests or concerns of the serving crews..

Koos
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#21
They are saying that few will be successful with their Concordia lawsuits, possibly the same here. It appears that some maritime laws side with the ship owners.
Don (ezdays) Day
Board administrator and
founder of the CANYON STATE RAILROAD
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#22
ezdays Wrote:They are saying that few will be successful with their Concordia lawsuits, possibly the same here. It appears that some maritime laws side with the ship owners.

That's nothing new..It was the same for the survivors of the Titanic.

At that time Maritime law had limits on what a passenger could receive as a settlement and that was based on passenger class. The few steerage survivors got far less then the surviving first and second class did.Musicians,cabin boys and other non crew members faired even worst since they had no real status as a passenger or crew member.

I wouldn't be a bit surprise if there still limitations.
Larry
Engineman

Summerset Ry

Make Safety your first thought, Not your last!  Safety First!
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#23
Once you are ticketed and on board, you've effectively signed documents releasing everybody from everything. Read the fine print on the back of your ticket next time you cruise. Legally, (I'm a diver, not a lawyer) I understand it that unless you've been injured in some way, even if negligence of some sort is proven, you won't win any damages. Just because crap was rolling downhill and it ruined your vacation won't justify getting a check.

I do think the CEO should have kept his mouth shut during his press conference. It's one thing to apologize as he should have, but I bet their lawyers really gasped when he said it was all their fault ....
Cheers,
Richard

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#24
Quote:Let's face it, the bottom line is everything in the corporate world. They saved a few million in update costs, but I'm guessing their losses will be in the billions by the time this is over. Ship cleanup and repairs, refunds, cost of getting passengers home, canceled cruises, lawsuits and lastly, a very tarnished reputation. Let's face it, their response was less than stellar.

Quote:I always question the wisdom of some corporate leaders. Take the Remington 700 rifle. There is a questionable trigger mechanism that can cause the gun to fire on its own. I was watching a program about this a while back and the designer said that a fix would have cost the company about another five cents to implement from the get-go. The didn't do anything and now after a million or more guns sold, they are faced with a series of lawsuits. The spent more on one lawyer than it would have cost to do it right in the first place.

I also remember a while back when one of the auto companies were being sued for something and it was reveled that they had decided early on that it would be cheaper to settle a few lawsuits than fix the problem in the first place.

The number of said item sold = A
The probability of something going awry = B
The average cost of an out of court settlement = C
AxBxC=X

If X is less than the cost of a recall (or update, or modification), there is no recall.

How many cruises is a ship like that good for? How many years do they stay in service? How many ticketed passengers per trip? It is all on a cost vs. risk analysis.

Dave
-Dave
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#25
Puddlejumper Wrote:How many cruises is a ship like that good for? How many years do they stay in service? How many ticketed passengers per trip? It is all on a cost vs. risk analysis. Dave

Don't know the answer to that, but, the first ship I served in was commissioned, in the first year of my life, and I spent three years in her, with lots of time off the Virginia Capes, and one six month deployment to the Mediterranean. Rode out some pretty severe storms in her too.
She was decommissioned and sold to Brazil, serving in their Navy for several years before she reached an age where she could not be economically repaired, and was then ( January 16, 1999 at 13:50 hours ) used as a bombing target. She rests in about 1250 fathoms, in the Atlantic, somewhere off the South American coast, not too far from Rio de Janeiro. She was 55 years old. She had served in WWII ( Pacific ), Korea,the Cuban blockade, and Viet Nam.
We always learn far more from our own mistakes, than we will ever learn from another's advice.
The greatest place to live life, is on the sharp leading edge of a learning curve.
Lead me not into temptation.....I can find it myself!
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#26
Unfortunately, the need to make a profit is coming in for some hard hits in this story. It's worth pointing out that not every industry puts profit above the need to continue in business (which of course also involves the need to continue to make a profit). Banks are fully aware that if the ATM network goes down for any period of time, you've got the makings of a large-scale situation like that of the Carnival cruise ships: people can't get along without cash. As a result, there are detailed regulatory requirements for banks to have backup computer systems in multiple layers to be able to keep ATMs up, or bring them back up in a fairly short period of time. And remember that if the banks didn't want these requirements, they wouldn't be there -- they keep every player up to the same standard. I used to participate in tests and exercises once or twice a year to rehearse the procedures for going to backup on bank computer systems. There have been numerous hurricanes, as well as 9/11, that put major bank computer systems out of operation, but the banks were able to maintain their ATM networks. Even in the absence of specific regulatory requirements, auditors look for credible corporate contingency plans. Clearly, with a cruise ship losing power and drifting for days in 2010, a sinking in 2012, and another power loss with no lessons learned in 2013, this should be raising questions about Carnival's ability to continue in business. It's not just some sort of a call that says it's cheaper to pay off litigants every year or two (haw haw), or we don't mind three major PR hits in four years (haw haw). I would say people are going to be out at Carnival. You can't run a company that way and stay in business.
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#27
To me, and it should be the same for all businesses, large or small, the customer's safety is #1, their happiness is next. An unsafe condition makes for unhappy customers and fodder for lawyers. A safe, but unhappy customer makes for bad relations, publicity and marketing. It is cause for losing customers and those that would be customers except for this bad publicity. I don't know of any business that doesn't need customers and anything you do or say that drives them away is like shooting yourself in the foot.
Don (ezdays) Day
Board administrator and
founder of the CANYON STATE RAILROAD
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#28
Latest news: Somehow, the Carnival Line managed to clean up the ship and serve a steak and lobster diner to the captive travelers when the TV cameras came aboard. Smell it? It's that "powerful odor of mendacity".

The Carnival Line has a long history of engine room fires that leave their vessels powerless and adrift, and they are protected by the same archaic maritime laws that protected the survivors of the TITANIC from collecting damages.
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#29
Interesting too, is after posting my reply about the "almost fire/explosion" I lived through, the news report last night stated that fuel/oil from a leak ignited when it came in contact with the hot engine.
Too bad no one was properly trained ( or maybe awake ) to react in time. Too bad routine maintenance was not followed closely enough to spot and repair the "leak".
We always learn far more from our own mistakes, than we will ever learn from another's advice.
The greatest place to live life, is on the sharp leading edge of a learning curve.
Lead me not into temptation.....I can find it myself!
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