70-foot wave hits NY-bound cruise ship

[Steff]

Oye ve.. this is not helping my "let's go on a cruise, honey" argument..

 

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/...epage-breaking2

 

 

 

BY TINA SUSMAN

STAFF WRITER

 

April 18, 2005

 

 

CHARLESTON, S.C. -- It was the first vacation in years that Caren Hogan had taken with her husband and two children, and she was looking forward to swimming with dolphins.

 

Instead, the four found themselves trapped in monstrous weather, watching funnel clouds form in the sea, as the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship pushed through a storm and was slammed by a seven-story wave that injured four passengers.

 

"It's been a nightmare," Hogan told her father, Mel Blanck, of Bushkill, Pa., in a phone message she left for him Saturday night after the liner docked in Charleston, S.C., for repairs caused by what Norwegian Cruise Lines called a "freak wave" off the coast of Virginia. According to the company, the 965-foot-long ship was caught in "extremely rough weather" late Friday as it headed back to New York following a weeklong cruise to the Bahamas.

 

Windows in two cabins were smashed by the seven-story wave, said company spokeswoman Susan Robison. In addition, 62 cabins were flooded after water poured through those windows. About 125 passengers who had been in those cabins were flown home. Robison said the four injuries were not serious, the worst being a man who required some stitches.

 

"The damage was really contained to two windows ... there was no damage to the hull," Robison said. "The ship is fine."

 

The Norwegian Dawn was due back in New York City about noon today, and is scheduled to set sail again this evening for another Bahamas cruise.

 

During last year's Republican National Convention in New York, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay considered chartering the vessel to house conventioneers in the Hudson. He dropped the idea after complaints from city officials, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, that the ship would deprive New York of big-spending Republicans.

 

Despite being declared safe after having been inspected by Coast Guard officials before leaving Charleston, about 175 passengers -- in addition to those whose cabins were flooded -- opted to disembark in Charleston, causing a minor run on rental cars. Clerks at both Budget and Enterprise said they were sold out, unusual for a Sunday. They attributed it in part to people who did not want to return to the ship, which Hogan, 42, jokingly referred to as "the S.S. Poseidon" in the phone message that she left for her father.

 

In the message, a calm-voiced Hogan, of Matawan, N.J., tells her parents: "We have been in swells for 24 hours. People have been hurt." Describing the wave, she says, "One 72-foot wave came crashing through the front of the ship and broke the windows."

 

Blanck said he spoke to his daughter, who remained onboard with her family, once after that message and that she had explained the sudden fear that swept through the estimated 2,000 passengers after the wave hit at dawn. "The rocking motion was one thing," he said, describing the storm. "The wave that came through was something else."

 

The water was high enough to flood cabins on the ninth and 10th decks of the 14-deck ship, Robison said, adding that the ship's captain was creeping along at 4 to 5 knots, instead of the usual 21 to 25 knots, at the time because of the choppy conditions.

 

Maritime experts say so-called "rogue waves" are not that unusual, and several cruise liners have been hit by them in recent years. In fact, Robison said another Norwegian Cruise Lines ship, the Norwegian Majesty, was hit by a huge wave last year while traveling from Bermuda to Boston. A window was damaged, but nobody was injured, she said. Cunard's Queen Elizabeth 2 encountered a wave estimated at 95 feet high in February 1995 in the North Atlantic, but nobody was injured.

 

Four years ago, waves of similar sizes hit two cruise ships, Hapag-Lloyd's Bremen and the Caledonian Star of Lindblad Expeditions, within one week in the South Atlantic, smashing windows.

 

Studies done by the European Space Agency and based on satellite imagery say such waves are believed to have sunk many of the more than 200 supertankers and container ships lost in the past 20 years. But because such sinkings are not scrutinized the way, perhaps, airline crashes are, the incidents are generally attributed simply to "severe weather," scientists say.

 

Researchers say such waves tend to form near strong currents such as the Gulf Stream off the eastern coast of the United States or the Agulhas Current off South Africa. In such places, smaller waves can roil into far larger ones, particularly during rough weather. However, others appear to come out of nowhere.

 

The Norwegian Dawn, which began sailing in December 2002, boasts 10 restaurants, a staff of more than 1,100 and three swimming pools, and can carry 2,224 passengers when filled to capacity.

 

Susman reported this story from Pismo Beach, Calif.

[Rex Kickass]

Seriously, stay away from Norwegian Cruise Lines. Bad customer service.

[EvilJester99]

Steff have fun on your cruise

[Rex Kickass]

From what I hear, the waves weren't what broke the windows, it was the waves knocking the outside hot tubs loose that slammed into the windows that broke the windows.