chengkp75

The statutory limit is 5 years, when the certificates of class are renewed. The certificate of class requires a "bottom survey" twice in 5 years (so roughly 2.5 years). Ships less than 15 years old can substitute an underwater survey for the "mid-period" docking, but on every multiple of 5 year anniversary of the ship starting service, it must have been dry docked within 3 months prior. Once you let the dry dock date go beyond the anniversary, the certificate of class is no longer valid, and without this, the "Ship's Register" (think title) is no longer valid, the ship's insurance is no longer valid, and the ship is no longer allowed to leave port. There are statutory inspections that need to be done in dry dock, the hotel renovations are merely done at the same time, due to the ship being out of service. The statutory work involves inspecting all machinery below the waterline (rudders, props, pods, stabilizers, thrusters), inspecting tanks that are normally not accessible in service (fuel tanks, etc), x-ray inspections of welds around the hull, ultrasonic thickness tests of hull plating and framing, and a bunch of other work.

Do you think that the Carnival ships with shafted propellers have a diesel engine connected to the propeller? No. Every cruise ship built in the last 25+ years have diesel electric drive, where the diesel powers a generator, all the generators power the entire ship together, and the propulsion (in the case of a shafted propeller) has electric motors that draw power from this "grid".

Not sure how you came by the 7" figure. Both ships use the same class engine, that has a 460mm bore (the cylinder diameter), hence the 46 in the model number. From the Wartsila tables, the 16 cylinder engine is 12.687 meters long, while the 12 cylinder is 10.375 meters long, so the 16 cylinder engine is 2.312 meters (91") longer. The larger engine is slightly wider and taller, mainly due to the larger turbochargers. Nearly every cruise ship, the "engine room" stretches the entire length of the ship, bow to stern, on the first level. A bigger ship will have bigger equipment, but for the most part, it is the same machinery, the same number of pumps, motors, purifiers, engines, watermakers, from the smallest ship to the largest.

If they want to continue to have her sail, they must have a dry dock by April, 2023. What they do, outside of the statutory work, is another topic, but in order for the ship to sail beyond April, or to be able to be sold, they have to dock her.

This is what I was responding to, that you hoped to see the engine room on an Oasis class ship, implying it would be different, but it wouldn't be much different than a Carnival engine room, and not unique in any way. If you just wanted to see another engine room for another experience, that's one thing, hoping for a different experience would be another.

After 46 years in engine rooms, if you've seen one, you've seen them all. Not a lot of variation.

There should have been numerous CCTV screens in the Engine Control Room, that allow the watch engineer to see nearly all of the engineering spaces.

I'm actually surprised that any cruise line allowed passengers in the engine room, both from a liability standpoint as well as a security standpoint. The vast majority of crew are not allowed in the engine spaces. The steepness of the ladders (stairs), and the possibility of burns would be the greatest reasons not to allow it, but also the need for PPE (personal protection gear), which would be long sleeves, steel toe shoes, safety goggles, hearing protection, and hard hats.

To add to the above post, I would get two travel adapter plugs. Use one for the extension cord for the CPAP as mentioned, on the 220v Schuko European outlet, and one in a 110v US outlet (or a 220v if another is available), to power a multi USB hub (one that has 4-6 USB ports), but doesn't have any power outlets). Typically, a "pure" USB (whether A or C or combination) hub is acceptable to all cruise lines, as there are no power outlets, and hence no surge protection.

One thing to note from longshore contracts is that the "straight time" wage is only paid for hours worked between 8am-5pm Monday thru Friday. Any hours worked after 5pm on weekdays, or any hours on Saturday/Sunday/Holidays, whether it's the first hour or the 12th hour worked, is paid at the overtime rate. This weekend overtime rate applies even if the weekend hours are the first the worker worked that week (in other words it does not require 40 hours to be worked before kicking in).

Having said that, I can make some educated guesses. The large space aft of 5091 is likely an AC fan room. The small space forward of 5087 is likely a pantry area.

No.

As there was no reports of damage or injury, and folks who were on the ship never reported a severe list, I don't believe this was a "potentially dangerous" maneuver, just one that caused an unforeseen free surface action in the pool that overflowed. The pools regularly overflow in rough weather, unless the crew have lowered the level in anticipation of bad weather. "Swept off their balconies"? Really? I doubt that the water up on the pool deck was more than ankle deep, and what came down past the balconies was at the very edge of the balcony, and dropping vertically like rain, not "sweeping" along the deck. As I've said before in this thread, if the maneuver was within the ISM guidelines, then there is no "explaining" to do, on the part of anyone on the ship, and no reprimands or discipline will be administered.

This is true, but as soon as a sighting like this happens, he is paged to the bridge, and will contact the bridge as soon as possible, to give orders. There will also be "standing orders" of what the watch is to do prior to the Captain arriving on the bridge, and these orders will be in accordance with the company's ISM code. The actions that a bridge officer can take are constrained by the Captain's standing orders and the ISM.

No.

I think more than supply and demand, it is rising cost (primarily debt service) that has led cruise lines to raise prices to cover the cost. Prices were held low to "prime the pump" and get the cruises rolling again. They will continue to raise prices until the demand slows down (there's your supply and demand), and hold there until either debt service becomes more manageable, or they feel they can try another rise in prices.

Sorry, this is not quite accurate, blame it on lack of coffee this morning. VLSFO is $550/mt, or $2.31/gallon. So, fuel for a week would be $650k. This is the same price fuel was a year ago. MGO is about 50% higher than a year ago.

Any company that does business in the US, regardless of where incorporated, can file for bankruptcy under US law, and many do, since the US has some of the most lenient bankruptcy laws. This has been done with all ships for a century. If you look up various cruise ship's Registry details for RCI ships, you will see a multitude of "owners", who make bareboat charters to the parent company for operation.

Actually, the price of VLSFO (very low sulfur fuel oil), the most common fuel used by the cruise ships (not diesel fuel), has dropped by nearly 50% since June. That would be the case, if the cruise line used #1 Diesel (what cars use in the US), and if they waited until the ship was empty. As noted above, the ships primarily use VLSFO, which is running about $340/metric ton now, which equates to $1.43/gallon. Even MGO (marine gas oil, the name for #2 Diesel), which is used only by ships without scrubbers, while in the US ECA, is running at $4/gallon ($923/mt). This is down about 25% since June. A cruise ship will not let the fuel go below 50% of capacity, in most cases, so even taking the 2 million gallon figure, you're only taking about 1 million at a time (3800 metric tons, or about 3 weeks worth), using a slightly higher figure than your 130-150 tons/day (170). So, for a scrubber equipped ship, that would be about $400k in fuel per week.

Most likely they are doing a diver survey at a port prior to entering NZ waters.

Let's see. I retired in September 2021. Does that make me out of date? Am I not current enough? And, crowdsourced sites like salary.com are not very accurate when it comes to unionized jobs, as I just looked at salary.com for Marine Chief Engineer salaries, and found that I was making well in excess of the top salary listed (by about $40K), and yet our company, with its union contract, was one of the less "desirable" contracts within the union, and we had trouble obtaining personnel. Just the fact that they try to break down data into irrelevant chunks (showing which states had the highest salaries for a job that doesn't care where you live), shows that they really have no idea about the industries they post salaries about.

I will again defend my position on longshore wages by taking data from the article that received data from the union itself: https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/dock-workers-union-demands-hurt-consumers/ In fact, according to the union's own material, the average dockworker makes $147,000 in annual salary and pulls in $35,000 a year in employer-paid health care benefits. Pensions pay $80,000 a year. Please show where I ever said that baggage would go missing over lack of tipping. Never said that, and don't believe it, as there is no way that one longshoreman tracks a single bag all the way from the curb to the ship's side, and since they won't share tips with the guys doing the scanning or driving the forklifts, what incentive is there to leave the bag behind. Is it insulting to state examples that I have personally seen over many years of experience with these workers? I have seen the same behavior on East Coast, Gulf Coast, and West Coast ports, so it isn't like it is isolated instances.

Okay, a few things. A ship is required to give aid to persons in distress, unless the Captain feels that he/she is jeopardizing the safety of the ship, passengers, cargo, crew, or environment. So, if things don't look kosher when the ship's boat goes to look at the refugees, they don't have to be taken onboard. Also, they are not allowed to bring any items with them. When something like this happens (and its been happening for the 40 plus years I've been going to sea on a regular basis), the Captain will notify the USCG and the USCG will ask the Captain if the persons are in a life threatening situation (is the boat/raft sinking). Based on where the instance occurs, and whether the USCG has assets available (boats), they will either tell the Captain to maintain the refugees in sight and await the arrival of a cutter, or to take the refugees on the ship. If the ship takes the refugees onboard, they are fed and housed in cabins with security standing by, and at the first port are turned over to the authorities. In this case, the USCG will take them into detention, and return them to Cuba or their home country at the first opportunity. The USCG does not have "armed rafts" (I'm assuming you mean the RHIB boats that escort cruise ships frequently in port, not rafts) that can be deployed from helicopters. Since they were intercepted before they reached US soil, there is no possibility that they will even be given an opportunity to apply for asylum, let alone have it granted.

And, you know this, how?

Ah, so now I see. You think people are stingy because they don't support a six figure salaried longshoreman with tips, but they do tip for low paid bartenders? But, I forgot, the "porters" at the cruise terminals are all struggling by on minimum wage, aren't they?