Too Big to Sail? - NY Times

[rsquare]

Forum members may be interested in an article in this morning's NY Times (web link here) on the increasing size of cruise ships and its implications for safety at sea, which seem dire. It was a reminder that QM2 was the world's largest cruise ship at launch, but now lags the newest title holders (RCL's Oasis and Allure) by 55 feet of length and 74,000 gross tons. The RCL ships can accommodate about twice as many passengers as QM2.

 

Not only have the ships been growing, so has the passenger:crew ratio. As low as 1.8 on QE2, it has climbed to 2.6-2.8 on the newer ships (and is about 2.4 on QM2 if Doug Ward's figures are correct). This seems to be at the heart of the safety concerns, particularly in an evacuation.

 

I'm certainly no naval architect, but a ship which is 4.8% longer than QM2 but with internal capacity 49% greater must have been built much higher than QM2 to achieve this. Not sure I would want a higher-deck cabin on such a ship.

 

One industry insider is quoted as saying "The simple problem is they are building them too big and putting too many people on board."

[balf]

We would never know how safe any ship would be until it was too late.

 

Costa Concordia was designed to sink vertically, so enabling lifeboats to be launched, and we know what happened in practice.

 

There are so many questions that are never answered, like how wheelchair passengers would get to the lifeboat stations, and why so many ships use the theatre as an assembly point rather than near a boat, and do they really have a workable system to get 6000 panicking passengers into the boats in an emergency.

 

As the captain says during the boat drill, if you need to jump in the water don't jump, just step over the edge. Yeh right.

 

I think QM2 which I think, hopefully, is inherently safer than most is the largest I will ever sail.

 

David

[Cruise Liner Fan]

Forum members may be interested in an article in this morning's NY Times (web link here) on the increasing size of cruise ships and its implications for safety at sea, which seem dire. It was a reminder that QM2 was the world's largest cruise ship at launch, but now lags the newest title holders (RCL's Oasis and Allure) by 55 feet of length and 74,000 gross tons. The RCL ships can accommodate about twice as many passengers as QM2.

 

Not only have the ships been growing, so has the passenger:crew ratio. As low as 1.8 on QE2, it has climbed to 2.6-2.8 on the newer ships (and is about 2.4 on QM2 if Doug Ward's figures are correct). This seems to be at the heart of the safety concerns, particularly in an evacuation.

 

I'm certainly no naval architect, but a ship which is 4.8% longer than QM2 but with internal capacity 49% greater must have been built much higher than QM2 to achieve this. Not sure I would want a higher-deck cabin on such a ship.

 

One industry insider is quoted as saying "The simple problem is they are building them too big and putting too many people on board."

I wonder if the government gives as much scrutiny to the airline industry as they are doing to the cruise ship industry? As for the Costa Concordia it is the fault of the idiot captain that the ship had the accident and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that tragedy :mad: Regards,Jerry

[BillieB]

Please may I point out that QM2 is not a cruise ship, but an ocean going liner.

Although there are many large cruise ships that can cross the Atlantic, QM2 was built specifically for that purpose. Sorry to be so pedantic, and I don't want to get into an indepth discussion on the matter.

[baccarat_guy]

I wonder if the government gives as much scrutiny to the airline industry as they are doing to the cruise ship industry? As for the Costa Concordia it is the fault of the idiot captain that the ship had the accident and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that tragedy :mad: Regards,Jerry

 

Do you realize the extreme level of maintenance requirements and documentation that are required for commercial airlines? Not only that, but planes and engines undergo an extreme level of documented heavy maintenance.

 

Setting aside, some Chinese airlines and airlines of 3rd world countries; the level of safety of US Commercial Airlines probably exceeds the safety of any cruise ship (ocean liner) by several orders of magnitude.

[Cruachan]

Do you realize the extreme level of maintenance requirements and documentation that are required for commercial airlines? Not only that, but planes and engines undergo an extreme level of documented heavy maintenance.

 

Setting aside, some Chinese airlines and airlines of 3rd world countries; the level of safety of US Commercial Airlines probably exceeds the safety of any cruise ship (ocean liner) by several orders of magnitude.

 

And that's as it should be. Given a choice between being on QM2 when she suffered engine failure in the Med and being on board a 747 when it suffered engine failure at 30,000 feet, I know which I would prefer. :)

 

J

[Cruise Liner Fan]

Do you realize the extreme level of maintenance requirements and documentation that are required for commercial airlines? Not only that, but planes and engines undergo an extreme level of documented heavy maintenance.

 

Setting aside, some Chinese airlines and airlines of 3rd world countries; the level of safety of US Commercial Airlines probably exceeds the safety of any cruise ship (ocean liner) by several orders of magnitude.

In all due respect and in my honest opinion I do feel safer aboard a ship than being aboard a plane. Regards,Jerry Edited October 28, 2013 by Cruise Liner Fan

[Lanky Lad]

"The simple problem is they are building them too big and putting too many people on board."

 

I could not have put it better myself. Bigger might be better for the cruise lines, but it's not safer.

[Cruise Liner Fan]

And concerning Senator Rockefeller from West Virginia, O.K. there is some concerns of building them too big and maybe they should not build them any bigger than the QM2. But other than that when there is enough lifeboat & life raft space for every passenger & crew, and also sprinklers and fire fighting equipment aboard ship and also laws not allowing the use of wood for decorating the interiors of the ships I don't know of anything else that will make the ships any more safer. Regards,Jerry

[baccarat_guy]

In all due respect and in my honest opinion I do feel safer aboard a ship than being aboard a plane. Regards,Jerry

 

Many also say, they feel safer in a car, than on a plane. But, that is usually explained by the fact that people do not understand risk.

 

Once you start to look at the thousands of take-offs and landing every day, and the sheer volume of people traveling by plane; you begin to realize how small the risk is.

 

Personally, considering the last year+, and the overall lack of oversight of the major cruise lines; it's just a matter of time before there is a catastrophe of unheard of proportions. I have no confidence, that any ocean liner sailing today (and this is mostly, with regard to the mega-ships) could properly evacuate a ship of 3,000 to 5,000 in a timely fashion if there was a major incident. This is further made difficult by the demographic that often travel on ships (older and less mobile). I certainly hope, this is addressed, before something "really" bad happens.

[Cruise Liner Fan]

Many also say, they feel safer in a car, than on a plane. But, that is usually explained by the fact that people do not understand risk.

 

Once you start to look at the thousands of take-offs and landing every day, and the sheer volume of people traveling by plane; you begin to realize how small the risk is.

 

Personally, considering the last year+, and the overall lack of oversight of the major cruise lines; it's just a matter of time before there is a catastrophe of unheard of proportions. I have no confidence, that any ocean liner sailing today (and this is mostly, with regard to the mega-ships) could properly evacuate a ship of 3,000 to 5,000 in a timely fashion if there was a major incident. This is further made difficult by the demographic that often travel on ships (older and less mobile). I certainly hope, this is addressed, before something "really" bad happens.

Well the passenger ship industry already suffered a major catastrophe. Ever hear of the Titanic? And it was only because of the arrogant attitude that having enough lifeboats & life rafts for every passenger & crew was not necessary, well that attitude came back to bite them on the rear-end when the Titanic went down. Because if the Titanic had enough lifeboat & life raft space for every passenger & crew there would have been not one loss of life. She sank slow enough to lower the lifeboats & life rafts. Problem was there was not enough lifeboats & life rafts for every passenger & crew. Of course the Lusitania was the result of the evil German submarine and the Andrea Doria was the result of bad navigation actions of the deck officers of the ship Stockholm had hit the Andrea Doria. Regards,Jerry

[Jim Avery]

I have to agree with the above poster that I do not want to be in an emergency situation with 6,000 or so passengers and crew (many of the crew will have less sea time than a number of the passengers). If Concordia had not drifted back onto Giglio Island, it would have gone to the bottom and I fear the casualty list would have been much more.

[Keuka Lake Sailor]

I read the NY Times article this morning. What got me was the fact that it was stated that lifeboats on the Allure and Oasis accomodate 370 people rather than the industry standard of 150 thru an exemption RC received. Furthermore, the lifeboats only accomodate passengers and the 2300 crew members have to use inflatable rafts that would have to be entered thru 59 foot evacuation chutes. I wonder how often the crew does that drill! Article also stated that sometimes crew turn over rate reaches 35% a year for the industry as a whole which complicates the issue regarding training, level of competence. etc............

[pmb1]

I read the NY Times article this morning. What got me was the fact that it was stated that lifeboats on the Allure and Oasis accomodate 370 people rather than the industry standard of 150 thru an exemption RC received. Furthermore, the lifeboats only accomodate passengers and the 2300 crew members have to use inflatable rafts that would have to be entered thru 59 foot evacuation chutes. I wonder how often the crew does that drill! Article also stated that sometimes crew turn over rate reaches 35% a year for the industry as a whole which complicates the issue regarding training, level of competence. etc............

Before being certified for commercial service in the US, every new model passenger aircraft must demonstrate that escape chutes can be deployed and that a full passenger load can be evacuated in the required number of minutes (yes, minutes).

There is no comparable requirement for passenger ships. And there ought to be.

[balf]

I wonder if the government gives as much scrutiny to the airline industry as they are doing to the cruise ship industry? As for the Costa Concordia it is the fault of the idiot captain that the ship had the accident and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that tragedy :mad: Regards,Jerry

 

No, but the ship should have behaved as design and it didn't.

 

Bit like a drunk driver piles into a wall. The man is an idiot but the car protects him from serious injury.

 

David.

[balf]

I don't know of anything else that will make the ships any more safer. Regards,Jerry

 

Every passenger vehicle that has ever been made is capable of being made safer. I am glad that you feel that ships are as safe as they can be, but in fact there are many, many improvements that could be incorporated into ship design and safety operating systems that would save lives in an emergency.

 

Complacency never saves lives.

 

David.

[BlueRiband]

Ships have become larger because passengers demand lower and lower fares and the only way to keep prices down is to use economy of scale.

 

Safety standards have only increased in their stringency. How many ships were sent to the bone yard because of SOLAS 2010?

 

For a 25 minute presentation on the subject start this podcast at 5:22: LSLC Cadwallader Symposium. From Titanic to Concordia: the Achilles Heel of Passenger Ships

[Salacia]

Obviously, we are on this forum because we enjoy ocean voyages. But things have changed in recent years: bigger ships with more passengers are sailing while fares are not what cruise lines projected at the time the contracts for new builds was signed.

 

There is only one way for cruise lines to maintain their profit margin, and that is by cutting costs.

 

We have all seen the effect of cost saving measures - no doubt there are other cost savings measures that we don't see.

 

Building ships with more passenger/crew capacity (such as those ships that carry 8,000 souls) makes for disaster. One such disaster at sea will cripple the cruise industry for years to come. There will be no profit, and lives will be lost, simply because some cruise lines ignore the reality that there is no way to safely evacuate thousands of people within 30 minutes, as required by SOLAS.

 

We've all seen how long it takes for an orderly disembarkation process, not to mention the tendering process. It doesn't take much imagination to think of how long it would take to evacuate a ship in the event of an emergency. The more passengers, the more difficult the process would be. And yet, cruise lines keep building ships that hold more people.

 

It is a disaster waiting to happen.

 

 

Salacia

[Classiccruiser777]

QM2 is as large a ship I will ever sail on. Regardless of safety assurances, anything bigger is too big for me.

[Salacia]

QM2 is as large a ship I will ever sail on. Regardless of safety assurances, anything bigger is too big for me.

 

I feel the same way. Plus the construction of these new ships pales by comparison to QM2. There is also something to be said for the camaraderie onboard QM2.

[Whitemarsh]

I don't see how smaller ships are necessarily any safer. They would still be filled with elderly and/or handicapped passengers, so the same problems (re evacuation) would still apply. The nature of the accident would probably have more of an impact on the survivor rate.

[paulista1950]

" the level of safety of US Commercial Airlines probably exceeds the safety of any cruise ship (ocean liner) by several orders of magnitude."

[paulista1950]

"Every passenger vehicle that has ever been made is capable of being made safer."

 

At what cost? Don't get me wrong, of course I'm pro safety but if cars cost $500 k, we would be in a complete different world.

[glojo]

Cruise ships, liners, ferries... whatever we want to call these vessels is really academic, I am in the corner that believes we might be seeing vessels that are now getting too big. The high sides are really neither here nor there. The location of lifeboats is in my opinion a more important issue and hopefully experts are not just learning lessons from the Concordia saga.... They are applying issues that were exposed from that event!!

 

Was the list of that ship a major issue regarding the non deployment of their lifeboats?? I am not convinced it was, that is me making a suggestion and definitely NOT pretending to know the answers.

 

I have no real idea, I have however read that these ships have to be capable of evacuating everyone on the lifeboats\rafts from just one side of a ship??

 

Concordia, despite everything that happened easily managed to launch a significant number of her life saving craft but looking at all the video footage of that sad event, the lowering of boats was perhaps a minor issue compared to the bigger picture.

 

Lack of communication, lack of training, lack of discipline and of course panic..

 

Note I am NOT discussing the cause of that grounding and I am not suggesting panic was a significant issue but listening to interviews of some passengers, panic was an understandable factor.

 

To pretend everyone is going to form an orderly line and wait patiently to board a life craft is at best possibly wishful thinking and when we have two thousand or more distressed, upset people demanding to know what is going on....

 

How many times do you see lifeboat drills practised at sea, at night in adverse conditions? Do we need training to be proficient at any type of skill? Train how we fight, fight how we train... By that I mean if we only lower a lifeboat in flat calm waters in well illuminated conditions.... Can we expect anyone to do this under extremely stressful, adverse conditions with lots of people pestering us to know what is going on.

 

Lessons can always be learnt and sadly but thankfully there is a lot of footage regarding the events that took place on Concordia that awful night

 

Having thousands of possibly traumatised, scared, frightened, curious folks all demanding to know what is going on and a crew understandably not in a position to give answers is not a nice situation.

 

I would like to see a cap on size, far more thought going into the design of life-craft including their stowage and deployment.

 

How many times has the QM2 had major cuts in power and been drifting helplessly? Is it as regular as any other similar powered vessel and before idiots suggest I am picking on that ship I will respectfully blow a rasberry in their face and tell them to grow up. ;):rolleyes:

 

I have no idea how big a problem these breakdowns are throughout the industry and it is possible the QM2 does not break down as much as those similar powered ships. New legislation has been introduced to ensure this type of failure does not happen on newer ships and hopefully it will be put right on older vessels... but do big ships risk the risk of bigger incidents?

[balf]

I don't see how smaller ships are necessarily any safer. They would still be filled with elderly and/or handicapped passengers, so the same problems (re evacuation) would still apply. The nature of the accident would probably have more of an impact on the survivor rate.

 

No Cunard ship is small. The potential problem is not the size of the ship, it's the passenger numbers, which obviously when we are thinking of 6000 means the ship will be big.

 

I am not confident that getting this number of people off a ship in an emergency can be done without loss of life.

 

You are correct that numbers of elderly and infirm passengers would make things more difficult and I am not confident that adequate plans are in place on any ship to deal with this.

 

David.