Wave kills Marco Polo cruise ship passenger in Channel

[Alphen]

Wave kills Marco Polo cruise ship passenger in Channel

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-26194897

 

Very sad news indeed.

This only shows that riding out a storm in port, or avoiding storms as much as possible is a good thing, although accidents like this are not always possible to avoid.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Very sad. Heard about this yesterday morning.

After 42 days cruising a rouge wave hits the Marco Polo and the man is killed.

Prayers for his family.

[Gail & Marty sailing away]

I feel bad for the family's..

[puppycanducruise]

My thoughts and prayers are with the family.

[KirkNC]

Very sad indeed.

[kazu]

Such sad news. Our thoughts are with him and the family.

[pbnjrockette]

Very sad indeed…prayers for the families. We sailed the Marco Polo in 2006 through the Drake Passage---lovely small ship. I do find it disturbing that a wave crashed through and broke windows---scary that can happen.

[mamaofami]

Very very sad.

[startwin]

Very sad event. The widow is now claiming that the ship was poorly maintained and is seeking compensation already.

[Hlitner]

Very sad event. The widow is now claiming that the ship was poorly maintained and is seeking compensation already.

 

Whether any of that is true, it is not very relevant when a ship is hit by a "rogue" wave. We seem to recall a similar incident happened to the Prinsendam (a few years ago) while she was cruising off Scotland, and many of her large windows were cracked due to the wave and tortioning of the superstructure. Fortunately nobody on the P'Dam was seriously injured, but the sea can surprise even the most experienced mariner.

 

Hank

[JDinWA]

That poor man, I'm so sorry for him and his family! Between youtube videos and Hollywood depictions, rogue waves have always seemed like one of the most frightening features of the ocean to me.

[COLLEYBERRY]

I am not sure there is a window made that can withstand Mother Nature if she really decides to throw a tantrum.

 

[startwin]

Having seen the videos and photos of the storms in the UK and especially from the coastal towns - all my relatives live there and some have their homes flooded - I agree that Mother Nature is too mighty for any mere window to withstand waves like that. It`s natural in the first stages of grief to look for something/someone to blame.

[rafinmd]

Whether any of that is true, it is not very relevant when a ship is hit by a "rogue" wave. We seem to recall a similar incident happened to the Prinsendam (a few years ago) while she was cruising off Scotland, and many of her large windows were cracked due to the wave and tortioning of the superstructure. Fortunately nobody on the P'Dam was seriously injured, but the sea can surprise even the most experienced mariner.

 

Hank

 

Didn't that also leave a dent in the hull that it took the next drydock to fix?

 

Mother nature is awesome and unpredictable, occasionally with tragic results.

 

Roy

[sammiedawg]

We were told by a princess crew member that a rogue wave broke a window on an Alaskan Princess ship. It might have been the Golden. This supposedly happened last year but I did not research it. We were in Alaska on the Sapphire princess and our last port was canceled due to storms and fear of rogue waves.

[Hlitner]

Didn't that also leave a dent in the hull that it took the next drydock to fix?

 

Mother nature is awesome and unpredictable, occasionally with tragic results.

 

Roy

 

Yep and you have a great memory. We were on the Prinsendam a few months after it was damaged and the dent (which was not a structural issue) was still quite visible. For many months they had replaced the far port window in the Crows Nest with a piece of plywood. This was the only time, in many years of cruising, that we were on a ship with a "boarded up" window.

 

I should add that the Prinsendam, with all of its age-related faults, remains our favorite HAL vessel.

 

Hank