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Jewel hit something

EVALUATOR

By EVALUATOR,
in Royal Caribbean International

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EVALUATOR

EVALUATOR

Posted
Posted

Two hours out of Columbia, and around 5:15 A.M. a severe vibration sook the ship and now we are stopped.

 

Something on the right front of the ship might have struck some kind of pipe.

 

Not sure of the details yet...

 

Remember Dewey defeated Truman.

 

Decks on 5 starboard are closed, and engineers are checking things out. Hope this won't be SPAM cruise 2.

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Cruiser 4 Life 66

Cruiser 4 Life 66

Posted
Posted

I'm on the ship too. Here is my report which I will add to this thread you started instead of starting a new one:

 

Today, Tuesday December 7, at approximately 5am the ship started shaking/vibrating violently. We were on our way to Cartagena, Colombia at the time with an arrival time scheduled for 7am. During this shaking I have an inside cabin so I couldn't see out the window to see what was going on. I thought we must be docking though because the speed shown on the ship info TV channel was very low and dropping. The shaking/vibrations stopped after about 15 minutes and then the speed showed increased by a lot. Very strange.

 

Then at 6am sharp the Captain came on over the intercom in every cabin (with no way to lower the volume or silence it) and apologized for waking anyone up. He then announced what had happened. He said we had hit a 100-meter long 2-inch thick piece of plastic piping. Where had this come from??? And that it was across our bulbous bow. By constantly reversing and going forward they were able to shake it off the bulbous bow. So that's what all the shaking was. The Captain said we would arrive about 30 minutes late because of this incident, but that our departure time in Cartagena would be changed from 1pm until 2pm to make up for any lost time.

 

I won't be able to answer replies on here much since it costs 40 cents a minute to use the internet and I'm getting ready to get off the ship. But I will check my email and check back here tonight.

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EVALUATOR

EVALUATOR

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The pipe was more like two feet in diameter. Over 1000 feet of it was above the water line where the ship snagged it off the bow. And I don't think it was just something floating in the water.

 

After we pulled away you could see the pipe remain stationary with the ocean current breaking over it.

 

The majority of the vibrations were from full reverse of the engines to get the ship to stop. Basically a dead stop from a speed of around 19 knots, so it shook the ship pretty good for about ten minutes. All the towels in the bathroom fell from the wall, the toilteries vibrated off the vanity and some of the cloths hangers jumped the rod in the closet.

 

After stopping, there was various staff checking things out. It does not appear that there was any damaage to the ship.

 

The pipeline will be another story. After stopping and evaluating the situation, we backed up a little (in ship terms about 1/4 mile) and went around the pipe which was left kinked and above the water.

 

It was still dark, and just before sunrise, so I don't know if any of the photos will come out. We'll see in a week.

 

Anyways, we made it into Columbia about 1/2 hour late and we will depart an hour later than scheduled. I signed up the bridge tour, so maybe more info will be available later.

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thelion

thelion

Posted
Posted

Glad everyone is ok! I was on the Pride of Aloha when we were hit by a wave that caused a similar experience. It can be jarring.

 

As for the previous poster who mentioned there is no way to turn off or down the volume on cabin announcements...yup...it is that way for a purpose. You would be very upset if you missed an emergency call because you had previously turned down your intercom.

 

Hope there was no serious damage to the ship! Those bulbous bows are pretty tough, though. Wasn't there a ship up in Alaska that hit a whale or something?

 

Edit: Yup! Princess. I knew there was.

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island lady "Live from...." Rare

island lady

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Yikes!!! :eek: :eek:

 

I am on her next month also. Hope there was no damage, and you are all safe.

 

Now....makes you wonder what the heck a stationery pipe that size and length was doing out there?? The DH, who has spent many days at sea in that area when he had his sail boat, said it could have been a dredge pipe. He said you would not believe how much crap is floating out there, and how many times full containers have fallen off those massive container ships.... Just a matter of time to see if and when you meet something out there. :(

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island lady "Live from...." Rare

island lady

Posted
Posted
Folks, I think now we got the final proof that there is an extension cord to provide the ship with electricity :D;)!!

 

steamboats

 

LOL!!! :D :D

 

Though in this case I think it was to provide a dump station (sewer pipe?) for when those toilets overflow. :eek: :D

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NordicPrince

NordicPrince

Posted
Posted
Actually this incident is a new Mythbuster's episode - Can You Stop A Cruise Ship With a Mile Long Pipe?

 

The answer is definitely yes, you probably can stop a cruise ship with a mile long, two foot thick pipe.

 

However in the theme in this episode: Metric System Buster: Can the average person in a decimal system country know how long 100 meters actually is?

 

From the back of those black notebooks we used in school I seem to remember that 1 meter is approximately 39 inches. 1 yard is 36 inches.

So 100 meters is probably closer to 108 yards. A mile is 1762 yards.

 

on topic:

One of the posters mentioned that there are electronic instruments in the bulbous bow, one might assume that the reason the ship had to get that pipe off of there is because of the interference the metal in the pipe caused in the instrumentation (sonar/depth measurement. ) The bridge probably noticed a change in their instrument panels which would make getting a correct depth reading difficult. I would guess tht's pretty important when approaching a harbor channel. That's my layman's assumption. If you nautical techie types can offer more information that would be great.

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The Flying Pirate

The Flying Pirate

Posted
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I can only imagine what was said on the bridge.

 

"Holy @#%#" "What the @%#& was that?"

 

Spoken with a Norwegian accent...:eek:

 

That's funny, Jewel's bulbous bow seems to be a magnet for finding things at sea, a couple years ago there was a big uproar when she pulled into Halifax with a dead whale caught on the bulb.

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Janice M

Janice M

Posted
Posted
That's funny, Jewel's bulbous bow seems to be a magnet for finding things at sea, a couple years ago there was a big uproar when she pulled into Halifax with a dead whale caught on the bulb.

 

I remember that one. We were on the ship.

Jan

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