Cruise liner 'ignored' passenger pleas to help stranded fishing boat

Reverend Ludd said:
Agreed with what you said until I got to the bit about nobodies fault.
Click to expand...

It's very difficult to decide where to place the blame though. Is the Captain at fault? Maybe. But maybe he never got the message. The bird watchers could certainly have done more. Telling a single member of crew, emailing the US coastguard and calling the cruise company when you finally get home doesn't really smack of any sense of urgency. It's my understanding that the Captain on these ships is not a figure who is difficult to find. He dines with the passengers most nights doesn't he?

Another point is that the sighting was 130 miles from land. One would like to think that any experienced captain, told of a sighting of a small open boat, possibly in distress, so far from land, would investigate properly. The ship is flag of convenience registered in Bermuda, where little or no attempt appears to be made to regulate shipping or investigate such matters, so we may never learn the truth.
Click to expand...
As for sighting a small boat that far off land, it really isn't that unusual in that part of the world. Fishermen there routinely go hundreds of miles offshore in boats that you or I would think twice about crossing a duck pond in.

Bermuda is flag of convenience for tax. Other regulations will follow the UK line with few additions.
 
Woodlouse said:
As for sighting a small boat that far off land, it really isn't that unusual in that part of the world.
Click to expand...

As I said earlier, I was on this ship at the time of the alleged incident. On a previous cruise, a life raft was spotted some distance from the ship, and a thorough investigation made. If the bridge had any suspicion that the vessel was in distress, I have no doubt that they would have investigated.

Remember that it's common for other boats to wave at cruise liners, often with flags or even T-shirts. There is a recognised way to make a distress signal using the arms (slowly and repeatedly raising and lowering arms outstretched to each side) this was not being done in this case.

Note that on the last point, the stories conflict: the passengers now say he was waving his arms up and down, but the survivor says he was waving a T-shirt "over my head". Presumably the passengers have decided that the up and down motion makes their story more convincing.
 
Last edited:
One would have expected 'Twitchers' to have powerful binoculars, which presumably would have helped determine if the chap waving was in trouble or just being friendly.

I think mention of the method of waving arms is a bit spurious; half the people in my sailing club don't know this, so I doubt a fisherman in that neck of the woods would be familiar with it.

I have met a few awful people in my time, but I find it hard to believe any professional seaman would deliberately ignore people in trouble; as mentioned previously, even beside decency it would be good PR, as opposed to the negative stuff being bandied about now.

I notice the incident is now being reported on BBC radio news.
 
parsifal said:
So the men in this small boat had failed to familiarise themselves with these regulations - how very careless of them. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Well, yes. It would be a good idea to familiarise ones self with the internationally recognised distress signals before heading out to sea in a small boat.

It's not really the point here though, as they were apparently recognised as being in distress but nothing was done about it. Since it is highly unlikely that a cruise ship captain would ignore such a report it only seems likely that there was a breakdown in communication.
 
Woodlouse said:
Well, yes. It would be a good idea to familiarise ones self with the internationally recognised distress signals before heading out to sea in a small boat.
Click to expand...

I was being sarcastic!

Seriously, would you expect 3 young men from a third world country in an inshore fishing boat to be even aware of the existence of such regulations?

And would you expect a highly qualified master mariner, with all the benefits of experience, powerful binoculars and other officers to advise him, not to be capable of realising that another vessel was in distress, especially when some of his passengers obviously had no such difficulty?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
According to the BBC, the Cruise Line Company now does accept that the passengers had correctly spotted the fishermen in distress before two had died and had properly reported it to a crew member but the crew member did not report it to the Captain or the Officer on watch.

Two lives could have been easily saved if someone had passed on the sighting. A tragedy which could have been averted.

Richard
 
parsifal said:
I was being sarcastic!

Seriously, would you expect 3 young men from a third world country in an inshore fishing boat to be even aware of the existence of such regulations?

And would you expect a highly qualified master mariner, with all the benefits of experience, powerful binoculars and other officers to advise him, not to be capable of realising that another vessel was in distress, especially when some of his passengers obviously had no such difficulty?
Click to expand...

As I said, it's not really relevant here since it is unlikely that anyone on the bridge was ever informed of the sighting. As for the passengers, they were also not that concerned otherwise they could very easily have made much more effort to get the message to those in command.
 
There are lessons to be learned here, but IMHO the passengers did what they should have done. They informed a crew member and were told the captain would be informed.
Unknown to them the message was never given, in their words "'We all three wanted to believe over the next few hours that since the cruise ship hadn't turned around, they must have had to notify some authorities from some nearby country or agency's search and rescue to come to his aid, "

They tried to do the right thing, it is for others to now question their own consciences to see if they did likewise.
 
jordanbasset said:
There are lessons to be learned here, but IMHO the passengers did what they should have done. They informed a crew member and were told the captain would be informed.
Unknown to them the message was never given, in their words "'We all three wanted to believe over the next few hours that since the cruise ship hadn't turned around, they must have had to notify some authorities from some nearby country or agency's search and rescue to come to his aid, "

They tried to do the right thing, it is for others to now question their own consciences to see if they did likewise.
Click to expand...

I agree with you jb.

I wonder if heirarchy played a part in this tragedy i.e. from "what passengers say is not really that important" through to "a junior rank should refrain from disturbing the Captain".

I have a colleague who is a commercial pilot who explained to me some years ago that the airlines spend a great deal of time and money on breaking down these "heirarchy" barriers, presumably because if something is ignored, overlooked or not questioned on a plane the consequences can be so serious.

In both this case and the Costa Concordia perhaps there should be more non-heirarchical "open discussion" encouraged on ships as well as aircraft.

Just a thought and I may be wrong!

Richard
 
Speak Up !

I am a huge believer in passengers or otherwise uninvolved people speaking up and making sure they've been heard if they see something which seems wrong to them; OK one might look a prat if all is well, but no harm done.

A classic, sad example is the Boeing 737 which crashed at Kegworth, killing I think 50+ people.

Due to poor cockpit layout, and no doubt stress, when one of the 2 engines caught fire, the Captain shut down the wrong engine, leading to disaster.

He had said on the cabin intercom ( I forget which way round it was ) " the port engine has a fire so I'm shutting it down " when the passengers could plainly see the starboard engine spewing flames...If someone had spoken up, tragedy may have been avoided.
 
Seajet said:
I am a huge believer in passengers or otherwise uninvolved people speaking up and making sure they've been heard if they see something which seems wrong to them; OK one might look a prat if all is well, but no harm done.

A classic, sad example is the Boeing 737 which crashed at Kegworth, killing I think 50+ people.

Due to poor cockpit layout, and no doubt stress, when one of the 2 engines caught fire, the Captain shut down the wrong engine, leading to disaster.

He had said on the cabin intercom ( I forget which way round it was ) " the port engine has a fire so I'm shutting it down " when the passengers could plainly see the starboard engine spewing flames...If someone had spoken up, tragedy may have been avoided.
Click to expand...

While Port and Starboard are usual terminology for the denizens of this forum, I bet that 99 out of a hundred airline passengers wouldn't know which side was which. But the stewards should have noticed!
 
AntarcticPilot said:
While Port and Starboard are usual terminology for the denizens of this forum, I bet that 99 out of a hundred airline passengers wouldn't know which side was which. But the stewards should have noticed!
Click to expand...

Good point, though he may have said 'left & right', as some in aviation do, I don't have a copy of the report by me, was using it to illustrate; I agree the cabin crew should have been on the ball either way ( and they'd be more likely to be listened to, rightly or wrongly ), but if I get into any vehicle be it a boat, aeroplane or car, I consider myself involved at least a little in helping the thing arrive at Point B in other than a smoking / sinking heap !
 
Seajet said:
I think mention of the method of waving arms is a bit spurious; half the people in my sailing club don't know this, so I doubt a fisherman in that neck of the woods would be familiar with it.
Click to expand...

Yeah! I'm still trying to track down the feckers in a mobo off Halyling Island 26 years ago who thought I was being friendly and just waved back!! :mad:

Exhausted, inexperienced, wind over tide, windsurf rig lost, and a strong tide carrying me away nearly drowned I did! :o

Fecking idiots. :mad:
 
Reverend Ludd said:
Talking about idiots.

I was passing Hayling Island years ago when I spotted this guy swimming.
I thought he was a nutter out in weather like that but I gave him a friendly wave anyway.
Click to expand...

Wrong guy - I was paddling a board :p

Anyway 26 years ago you weren't anywhere near Hayling Island - you were honing your fecking idiot social skills elsewhere :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top