falling off the ship

[Cru1s1ng2009]

Really. Falling off a ship in the middle of the ocean is a great way to start a new life, huh? :rolleyes:

 

No, no, he has a valid point. You could hate your wife/husband/job/fill in the blank, and want to get out but want your kids to be covered. So you jump off the promenade deck, pray you don't get made into a tutti salad by the propellers, hope you are full of air from all the bread and beer you have consumed, and have your towel animal sting ray to help you swim to the nearest island, you got it!

[chengkp75]

Natural Selection, I dig it.

 

Im so glad my thread is still alive, I have really enjoyed it. No one at work believes me that it is impossible unless you are trying to do it. I am going to take pictures of the rails on the pool deck as proof. I've never been in a balcony room so I have no idea. Sh1t, I haven't even been in a room with a window...:rolleyes:

 

Hagarstown isn't that far from Baltimore. Organize an office outing on a day that the Grandeur is in port, and they can see the crew cleaning the balconies and such. Then a nice party in the Inner Harbor or Little Italy.

[babyher]

No, no, he has a valid point. You could hate your wife/husband/job/fill in the blank, and want to get out but want your kids to be covered. So you jump off the promenade deck, pray you don't get made into a tutti salad by the propellers, hope you are full of air from all the bread and beer you have consumed, and have your towel animal sting ray to help you swim to the nearest island, you got it!

 

 

 

 

I know of someone who did that. Not on a cruise ship but faked a death to get away from it all. Long ,long crazy story but eventually they got caught .

 

I would think there are better ways with better odds of surviving than jumping off a cruise ship.

[Treven]

I just recalled another way of "falling off" the ship. The young woman who evidently had a couple friends of hers to "help" her husband over the railing on the cruise ship they were on. Unfortunately I don't remember what the legal/judicial ramifications were.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Treven

[Warm Breezes]

DH and I were watching 1000's of Jellyfish from our balcony on our last NCL Jewel cruise when we spotted an idiot sitting on the rail with both feet on the outside of the ship. Luckily the Captain on the Bridge spotted him about the same time and yelled at him to get off the rail. I hope they sent someone to that room too and took some action against him. I'd personally quarantee him to an inside room, send him packing at the next port and ban him from sailing on my ships again.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Warm Breezes

[loubetti]

Bingo

 

1. Stupidity fall

2. Drunken fall (sub-category? of above)

3. Jump

4. Push

 

Only four categories of overboards.

 

I have yet to ever disagree with any of your comments, my good man!

 

Anyway, someone goes overboard, dead or alive, the bridge must know about it, whether it be some MOB system, someone watching etc.

 

Even with pod propulsion, especially at cruise speed, they have to turn the ship in order to get back to the position that the person went OB. With potential currents and winds, this is not easy. Here is an article about the types of turns the ship may need to make:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_overboard_rescue_turn

 

Now, perhaps with GPS they could immediately mark a "waypoint" and turn back to it. We do this in aviation, but we're not worried about "MOB", and will do it for different reasons. Without this, and especially at night, this is all a great challenge to get back to the location.

 

An image for one of the possible turns; a "Williamson" turn:

 

Edited March 13, 2015 by loubetti

[chengkp75]

No problems, lou, you deal in 3 dimensions, we only need 2.

 

Yes, returning to the spot is very difficult, and is compounded by night, seas, wind, and delay in starting the turn. The problem that is not covered by the Wiki article is that a ship does not stop on a dime. And further, sudden turning at high speed causes multiple problems. And, yes, the ECDIS (Electronic Chart Display Information System) or electronic charts, have a MOB button on them that will waypoint the instant the bridge is notified of the overboard. Either the Williamson turn you show above, or the Scharnow turn can be used to return to the exact reciprocal course line. However, note that both of these turns require the use of "hard over" rudder to complete. Hard over on a ship's rudder is 35*. Normally, at sea speeds, the ship will have a limiter on the autopilot to keep helm commands below 5-7*. This is because with either prop and rudder (nearly always using a Becker or trim tab rudder) or pods, the turning force that can be applied to the ship at high speed will heel the ship over to an alarming point. I was on the Norwegian Sky when she was heading to Vancouver. Official line is a steering system failure, reality was operator error on the bridge, anyway, the helm went hard over at 19 knots, and the ship heeled over 40+*. The deadlights in the Engine Control Room, which are normally 10-12' above the waterline, were completely submerged. There wre virtually no intact dishes or glassware on the ship, and we disembarked 100 passengers to the hospital in Vancouver, mostly with broken limbs. So, what do you do? You slow the ship down. Now, even going to a "crash" astern bell, this will take a couple of miles and 4-5 minutes until you slow down enough to start to turn. However, this "crash" stop will also tend to fling passengers around, so you must slow down more gradually. It will normally take 5-6 miles and about 15 minutes to slow sufficiently to turn using one of the above turns.

 

However, todays GPS and ECDIS make needing to return to the exact spot much easier, so the Captain will make a gradual slowdown, and a gradual wider turn, to return to the waypointed spot, but again 20-40 minutes will have passed.

 

Then, when you get to where the person went overboard, they are not there, because of wind and current, so you've got to calculate how fast a human in the water will drift, and start moving in that direction.

 

Then you must look for something incredibly small in the vastness of the ocean, frequently wearing clothing nearly the same color as the water, so it becomes infinitely more difficult. As I say, maybe 30% are rescued, and that is probably generous.

[loubetti]

No problems, lou, you deal in 3 dimensions, we only need 2.

 

Again, I agreed with everything you said in that post. I guess an aviator and a mariner have more in common than they think!

 

Yes, we travel in 3D and you 2D (sort of), and we don't deal with pax in the casino or bar restaurant, with a "hard over" throwing them on the floor; our pax are strapped into seats. However, aside from a MOB it can be more similar than you think, this is why I have come to understand it so well. We do things similar to a Williamson turn when we enter a holding pattern, but we do not need to be precise, and are also dealing with a VHF navigational aid or GPS waypoint to navigate to. We really don't care about the wind, and our modern autopilots and GPS will do it at the push of a button. Happy to hear you can punch in a GPS waypoint on the ship, but I figured you could. It's more a matter of when you are informed of the MOB and punch it in. Otherwise, you are looking for a needle in a haystack.

 

All that being said: Going off a ship, regardless of reason is likely a death sentence, especially at night, but we agree with that. Daytime, not much better unless it is a LOW deck and you can swim, are uninjured, and the ship finds you fast.

 

Then we have potential hypothermia for the victim to deal with if rescue is not quick.

Edited March 13, 2015 by loubetti

[sfaaa]

Really. Falling off a ship in the middle of the ocean is a great way to start a new life, huh? :rolleyes:

 

You obviously are not a good planner. No witness at night. No body found. Empty balcony cabin in the morning. Ship in the middle of the ocean. What really happened? Did he fall or did he fake his death and disappear? You can draw your own conclusion.

Edited March 13, 2015 by sfaaa

[geoherb]

We had a man overboard situation in August on the Caribbean Princess. It happened as we were getting ready for dinner. We rushed out onto the balcony when we heard the announcement. We could see the life buoys that someone had thrown into the water. The ship was gradually turning. The crew launched a small craft to search for the guy. While we were at dinner, the captain made an announcement that the man had been rescued alive. Later we heard that it was an autistic young man. No one said why he jumped. He was lucky that people had seen him and had thrown the life buoys that helped the rescuers pinpoint his location. He and his family were disembarked at our next port according to some people we talked with.

[boating girl]

I guess you haven't read Carl Hiaasen's Skinny Dip.

 

I loved that book.

[SewMuch]

I'll just add that another way to fall overboard is to be in an area you're not supposed to be in. If you go past those big "Crew Access Only" signs you might enter an area that has lower rails.

[chengkp75]

I'll just add that another way to fall overboard is to be in an area you're not supposed to be in. If you go past those big "Crew Access Only" signs you might enter an area that has lower rails.

 

Nope, SOLAS applies to the crew as well as passengers. There may be chain type rails to allow crew access to things over the side, but the height will still be the same.

[Tiggertastic]

It's when you get the one like they had on carnival where she was drunk, rescued, survived then sued the cruise line for negligence as she stated they should not have served her any more alcohol

 

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