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March 30, 2007 11:25 AM   Subscribe

Nearly 500 passengers, including eight with broken bones, disembarked from the Grand Voyager cruise ship in Sardinia ... a day after it was battered by a storm in the Mediterranean Sea.
posted by The Light Fantastic (30 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
A three hour tour, a three hour tour...

That thing was nearly fully tipped onto one side at one point. Yikes.
posted by DU at 11:37 AM on March 30, 2007


I've never been seasick in my life, despite my best efforts. A couple of years ago I sailed down the Adriatic in a modified ferry during a force 9 gale. While everyone else was below decks puking, I was up on the observation platform watching 20ft swells crash over the bow. I then retired to my cabin, rocked like a little baby.

But this.....this is something that scares me just watching it. Had I been on that ship, I might not have puked, but I'd have filled my pants once or twice.
posted by quite unimportant at 11:48 AM on March 30, 2007


That's an intense video. Seeing a ship that big tossed like that is frightening.
posted by OmieWise at 11:53 AM on March 30, 2007


I'm puzzled how a whirlybird is able to be a relatively stable platform when a giant ship is getting tossed about...but I wouldn't really want to be on either, that day.
posted by maxwelton at 12:04 PM on March 30, 2007


That makes me feel like yelling 'jebus save me!'

That was horrific.

And whoever is piloting that helicopter needs a raise. Or perhaps the wind had went down and the seas were still just rough. But it doesn't look that way. Nerves of steel.
posted by killThisKid at 12:08 PM on March 30, 2007


Amazing video, but I'm confused. Did this happen two years ago? I've been trying to find out more about this incident.
posted by Jazz Hands at 12:08 PM on March 30, 2007


After watching the spray closely, it definitely looks like the wind is not incredibly high. My guess is the wind is down but the seas are still crazy.
posted by killThisKid at 12:11 PM on March 30, 2007


"Did this happen two years ago? I've been trying to find out more about this incident."

As far as I can tell, it happened in February of 2005. The ship's engines went out after the ship was hit by a wave - I believe that's why it's tossing in such an uncontrolled fashion.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 12:17 PM on March 30, 2007


"Small boys" -- destroyers and frigates in the Navy -- are notorious for how they ride in heavy seas. They're smaller and mostly lack the stabilization that modern, keep-the-paying-customers-happy cruise liners have. Imagine taking 40-degree rolls in a beam sea (waves are hitting you in the side of the ship) or endlessly rollercoastering up and down through waves big enough to break green water all the way over the ASROC mount on the fo'c'sle, 70 feet back from the bow. Knew a j.g. who quite unashamedly had to take a bucket on the bridge with him and keep it between his feet when he'd stand JOOD watches. As Sid Vicious put it, everybody vomits now and then. It's actually worse belowdecks when you can't look at the horizon for a reference to help your eyes sync up your inner ears, or however that works. And the North Atlantic in fall/winter...try rockin' and rollin' for two weeks straight while you're escorting a bird farm. The crew finally gets too tired to barf. People learn how to handle themselves and their work, but it's easy to get banged up if you're careless or (more often than you think) just plain tired. Even the bigger ships can roll a lot -- imagine the forces that can make a 100,000-ton aircraft carrier roll twenty degrees each way.

(Here's some historical stuff on how the US Navy lost twelve ships in a hurricane while operating in the Pacific on October 1945.)

And that's on surface ships, where you can get used to it with long practice. On submarines, you're routinely far, far below where surface wave action would affect the boat's motion, so when you do come up to antenna depth, the boat starts taking rolls and people turn green pretty quickly if the "roof" is moving real hard. The "bubbleheads," G*d bless 'em, can't hang.

If a submarine actually surfaces (rare out at sea, thank G*d) in radical sea states, it's way worse because modern submarine hull forms are optimized for continuous undersea cruising. That's why they look less shiplike than WW II-era diesel boats, which have somewhat better seakeeping designs for surface cruising -- the latter were essentially large, high-endurance torpedo boats that had the added talent of occasionally sinking on purpose for relatively short periods. Modern boats' cylindrical hulls roll like drunken manatees, and the "sail" -- the upper structure that some people call the "conning tower" -- catches beam-aspect wind and waves, accentuating the rolling even more -- too much joy, if you're one of the bridge crew 30 feet up on top of the sail. Whee!
posted by pax digita at 12:22 PM on March 30, 2007 [4 favorites]


I'm glad the finally made it back into port, after 2 years at sea.
posted by Dave Faris at 12:25 PM on March 30, 2007


When I was in college, I used to crew on an overnight racing sailboat. When it would get really bad, people would get very quiet, and then eventually someone would lose thier stomach... causing a chain reaction in stomach losing. Some people would lose it every time, others would never lose it. Looking into the distance always seemed to help... but the only cure for me was getting off of the damn boat. Dry land works wonders. Funny thing was, after getting off the boat, I could still feel a swaying motion... and it was particularly noticable in front of the urinal... even without a post race drink.
posted by R. Mutt at 12:31 PM on March 30, 2007


Fixing your eyes on the horizon, yeah. The bridge crew and the lookouts are lucky there. If you're ever going on a cruise and you know you're motion-sensitive, getting a stateroom as close to the center of the ship as you can will help somewhat. I've found Transderm-Scop patches get me stoned and screw with my vision. I'd rather barf until I'm used to it. That, and laugh at Marines puking their guts out.
posted by pax digita at 12:38 PM on March 30, 2007


::Cancels upcoming cruise::

About 12 years ago I was on a frieghter ferry during rough seas in the English Channel. I did not leave my bunk for the entire day. Not to eat, not to pee, NOTHING. (Thank god I have a strong bladder.) Every time my foot touched the floor I wanted to vomit.
Extra credit ironic-but-true detail: the only book I had with me was Gulliver's Travels. Basically about a guy who is constantly shipwrecked. Yeah, great.
posted by miss lynnster at 12:55 PM on March 30, 2007


when it was caught in a storm

There is no "caught in a storm"... the satellite coverage and warning services available to mariners, especially in the Mediterranean, are outstanding. This incident was entirely preventable.
posted by rolypolyman at 1:18 PM on March 30, 2007


The bridge is so close to the water line it was damaged by a wave, which then knocked out control to the engines. No backup controls? Whoever designed that hull wasn't thinking of storms like that.
posted by CynicalKnight at 1:26 PM on March 30, 2007


That would really screw with my game of shuffleboard.
posted by CG at 1:27 PM on March 30, 2007 [1 favorite]


FWIW, to add something useful to the discussion here's a satellite photo of Europe that day (3 MB GIF).
posted by rolypolyman at 1:30 PM on March 30, 2007 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: Causing a chain reaction in stomach losing

(h/t r.mutt)
posted by jmccw at 1:36 PM on March 30, 2007


We're not talking about the big Voyager of the Seas, I was excited there for a minute.

Respectable cruise operators are very cautious about the itineraries they run, and the state of the weather. As rolypolyman points out, in the day of satellite and supercomputers, storms don't come out of nowhere.
posted by anthill at 2:19 PM on March 30, 2007


more nausea
posted by anthill at 2:24 PM on March 30, 2007


Wow, it must have been like the Poseidon Adventure on that boat. Pretty scary.
posted by gfrobe at 2:28 PM on March 30, 2007


rolypolyman, I can't really se anything unusual in your pic. Can you tell me what I should look at?
posted by Catfry at 3:07 PM on March 30, 2007


Wow, it must have been like the Poseidon Adventure on that boat. Pretty scary.

Let's not get carried away. This was nowhere as bad as the remake. Only 500 came out puking and wanting their money back.
posted by srboisvert at 3:22 PM on March 30, 2007 [3 favorites]


My parents have a Grand Voyager, and with 200,000 miles on it, it rides a little like that.
posted by dhartung at 3:43 PM on March 30, 2007


Why was it taking the sea broadside? It should have been heading directly into the swell. Was it out of control?

I've been in >70 foot swell in a much smaller ship (330 foot) - and there was no way we were going to turn across the swell with the sea looking like a sheet of corrugated iron.

90% of the crew were crook - the remainder of us were in total awe as we plowed over one then through another - the whole ship shaking and groaning. The best place to be was aft.

I saw a bright purple vomit that day.
posted by strawberryviagra at 5:55 PM on March 30, 2007


Oh, can't you see the morning aaaafterrr?
It's waiting right outside the storrrrm
Why don't we cross the bridge togetherrrrr
And find a place that's safe and warrrrrm...

posted by miss lynnster at 5:58 PM on March 30, 2007


my first boat trip was across the english channel, and the ferry got tossed like what felt like that (a ferry, mind you). the propeller left the water, and my family (I was 13) was crouched below decks in far aft.

unfortunately, next to the theatre. which was showing Top Gun. which didn't help.

but the scale of this bobbing action is truly astounding.
thanks for sharing.

reminds me why I kept watching 'Deadliest Catch'
posted by Busithoth at 7:52 PM on March 30, 2007


Calvin: back and forth, back and forth...
posted by ryanrs at 11:49 PM on March 30, 2007


"...lack the stabilization that modern, keep-the-paying-customers-happy cruise liners have..."

A couple of years ago we took the Queen Mary 2 from Southampton to New York, and got caught up in a Gale Force 6 storm about three days out. Over the next twenty four hours it turned into a Gale Force 7 which was terribly exciting.

Even through the QM2 has four huge undersea stabiliser - you can see them from a couple places, and they are like wings that push against the rolling motion - folks were vomiting in the passage ways and generally feeling pretty poor. I wasn't bothered but I've spent a lot of time in small aircraft flying in nasty conditions with rough landings in remote airfields, but my GalPal was so messed up she needed a shot that knocked her out for almost an entire day.

I can not imagine what it would be like to take a trip in a boat rocking like this one.

If there is any justice in the world, the real expensive rooms, those costing north of £30,000 for the trip - are located at the top of the ship. We visited the observation deck up there and boy was it horrible.
posted by Mutant at 1:21 AM on March 31, 2007


anthill - RCI's Voyager only just came out, it would have been big news if that was having such a problem! (It also holds way, way more than 700 pax.)

What? Me, a cruiser? Sigh...sad but true.
posted by etoile at 1:21 PM on April 4, 2007


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