Strange incident aboard the Regal last week

[xavier]

So we sailed on the Regal Dec 6-13, 2015. Gorgeous ship, outstanding crew, Captain Perrin is a gem, Cruise director Paul is hysterical and deputy cruise director Lynne is so cute you could just eat her up.

 

Took advantage of an upsell offer from a mini suite to an aft owner suite, how lucky were we!! Love love loved it!

 

So here the incident: Saturday at about 9 pm we were on our balcony having dinner and I see some LIVE EMBERS flying passed us and all around. Both hubby and I were stunned for a sec. It looked like they were coming from the horizon court. As one morning we woke up half a cigar dropped on our balcony I just assumed someone was smoking. Then I smelled fire. Hubby runs inside to call 911 the embers were flying around like crazy and I'm sure the ship,is going to catch fire. Apparently the 911 number is mainly used for medical emergencies. But the lady said she would report it to the bridge. In the meantime, I'm not moving from the balcony cause I'm sure by me staring at the embers will save the ship! A couple of minutes later a Princess employee is on our neighbors balcony saying he tried to knock on our door but there was no answer. When you are on the balcony it is very hard or impossible to hear anything inside the cabin over the sound of the wake. Anyways, he tried to tell us that it was just smoke from the smoke stack and nothing more when a few embers drifted by he ate those words. As my husband was going into the hall to take with him he met our cabin steward as our neighbors 2 doors down called him. The up shot is about a half hour later another employee knocked on our door to say they "were just doing some routine maintenance and everything was under control". Not sure what kind of maintenance you would be doing an a ship that involved fire but we are still here so it was just an exciting night, thankfully.

 

Anybody every experience this?

[CruiserBruce]

There have been many threads here about soot issues on the aft of Regal and Royal.

[newcruzer2]

Wow , well soot is NOT embers and embers are extraordinarily dangerous as anyone with wood burning fireplaces knows, they will catch anything on fire ...as they burn so hot, heck embers melt metal :0

Will be interested if anyone can give you so REAL thoughts and not that old rear balcony soot thread blah blah

[Working 2 Cruise]

There have been many threads here about soot issues on the aft of Regal and Royal.

 

There's a big difference between soot and embers.... I don't think this had anything to do with soot!

 

OP, that would have been a little too interesting for me! Glad everything was ok.

[Mom33]

So we sailed on the Regal Dec 6-13, 2015. Gorgeous ship, outstanding crew, Captain Perrin is a gem, Cruise director Paul is hysterical and deputy cruise director Lynne is so cute you could just eat her up.

 

Took advantage of an upsell offer from a mini suite to an aft owner suite, how lucky were we!! Love love loved it!

 

So here the incident: Saturday at about 9 pm we were on our balcony having dinner and I see some LIVE EMBERS flying passed us and all around. Both hubby and I were stunned for a sec. It looked like they were coming from the horizon court. As one morning we woke up half a cigar dropped on our balcony I just assumed someone was smoking. Then I smelled fire. Hubby runs inside to call 911 the embers were flying around like crazy and I'm sure the ship,is going to catch fire. Apparently the 911 number is mainly used for medical emergencies. But the lady said she would report it to the bridge. In the meantime, I'm not moving from the balcony cause I'm sure by me staring at the embers will save the ship! A couple of minutes later a Princess employee is on our neighbors balcony saying he tried to knock on our door but there was no answer. When you are on the balcony it is very hard or impossible to hear anything inside the cabin over the sound of the wake. Anyways, he tried to tell us that it was just smoke from the smoke stack and nothing more when a few embers drifted by he ate those words. As my husband was going into the hall to take with him he met our cabin steward as our neighbors 2 doors down called him. The up shot is about a half hour later another employee knocked on our door to say they "were just doing some routine maintenance and everything was under control". Not sure what kind of maintenance you would be doing an a ship that involved fire but we are still here so it was just an exciting night, thankfully.

 

Anybody every experience this?

 

Welding comes to mind.

 

The illegal cigar smoker looks to be the suspect in your complaint.

[WISH84]

So we sailed on the Regal Dec 6-13, 2015. Gorgeous ship, outstanding crew, Captain Perrin is a gem, Cruise director Paul is hysterical and deputy cruise director Lynne is so cute you could just eat her up.

 

Took advantage of an upsell offer from a mini suite to an aft owner suite, how lucky were we!! Love love loved it!

 

So here the incident: Saturday at about 9 pm we were on our balcony having dinner and I see some LIVE EMBERS flying passed us and all around. Both hubby and I were stunned for a sec. It looked like they were coming from the horizon court. As one morning we woke up half a cigar dropped on our balcony I just assumed someone was smoking. Then I smelled fire. Hubby runs inside to call 911 the embers were flying around like crazy and I'm sure the ship,is going to catch fire. Apparently the 911 number is mainly used for medical emergencies. But the lady said she would report it to the bridge. In the meantime, I'm not moving from the balcony cause I'm sure by me staring at the embers will save the ship! A couple of minutes later a Princess employee is on our neighbors balcony saying he tried to knock on our door but there was no answer. When you are on the balcony it is very hard or impossible to hear anything inside the cabin over the sound of the wake. Anyways, he tried to tell us that it was just smoke from the smoke stack and nothing more when a few embers drifted by he ate those words. As my husband was going into the hall to take with him he met our cabin steward as our neighbors 2 doors down called him. The up shot is about a half hour later another employee knocked on our door to say they "were just doing some routine maintenance and everything was under control". Not sure what kind of maintenance you would be doing an a ship that involved fire but we are still here so it was just an exciting night, thankfully.

 

Anybody every experience this?

 

Were you on the Marina Deck? We were in Baja 734 and experienced very bad Soot but for some reason I associated it with Friday night, not Saturday night but with my AIBP, maybe my days are running into each other.

 

Anyway, our cabin steward specifically mentioned Marina deck getting the worse of the soot on this particular night.

[newcruzer2]

Welding comes to mind..

 

Excellent suggestion.

[xavier]

Were you on the Marina Deck? We were in Baja 734 and experienced very bad Soot but for some reason I associated it with Friday night, not Saturday night but with my AIBP, maybe my days are running into each other.

 

Anyway, our cabin steward specifically mentioned Marina deck getting the worse of the soot on this particular night.

 

We were on deck C. Did notice soot was REALLY bad Friday night too.

 

CruiserBruce I do know the difference between soot and live embers.

[Coral]

I have a friend who was in an aft suite on the Royal Princess and also saw live embers. It freaked them out also. It would scare me.

Edited December 14, 2015 by Coral

[OCruisers]

Welding comes to mind.

 

You're right. Welding does cause embers and why people wear safety glasses when welding.

Cigars seem unlikely to have been the reason.

[WISH84]

We have noticed when sitting out by the pool to watch Movie's Under the Stars, especially at night, you can sometimes see embers come flying out of the funnel. Clear as day (so to speak).

[cb at sea]

This is why you shouldn't leave your towels, bathing suits, and hand laundry on the balcony....a stray ember could have been bad news!

[xavier]

This is why you shouldn't leave your towels, bathing suits, and hand laundry on the balcony....a stray ember could have been bad news!

 

OMG! You reminded me of something. When we were on the top deck at the back of the ship looking down someone had a clothes line strewn with clothes draped across their balcony! I took a picture because I thought it was so funny. Now I realize it could have been not so funny. I'll post the picture once I get home from work.

[Shogun]

Hi All

 

Remember being on deck at silly o clock in the morning still dark, engine room

 

guy was on deck with radio, loads of black smoke and glowing bits coming out

 

of the stack, turns out it was maintenance they do something that cleans

 

the stack, may be something similar.

 

 

yours Shogun

[satxdiver]

The stack like a fireplace flue has to be cleaned out periodically. They both collect flammable material that was not completely ignited. One can have a fire in their chimney/flue if it is not cleaned out. I would expect the ship to have the same issue and it sounds like they were cleaning out the ship flue which may cause live embers to be emitted. There should have been crew watching the stern to make sure no problems were created.

[chengkp75]

Ding, ding, ding. Shogun is the winner.

 

Late at night, the ship will "blow tubes" to clean the flue pipes of the boilers. This uses steam to power off the soot that stick to the tubes, and these flakes are usually so hot they glow like embers. Another maintenance that is done at night is to clean the turbochargers of the diesel engines. Ground up walnut shells are blown into the exhaust side of the turbocharger to "sand blast" soot from the turbo blades. These bits of nut shell are in exhaust gas at about 400*C, so they tend to burn up as well. Sometimes late night strollers will comment about the smell of roasting nuts. Obviously, the engineers and the bridge officers didn't get on the same page about wind direction, as there is normally a change in ship's heading to ensure the embers trail away aft of the ship.

 

These embers are not hot enough to melt metal. Due to their large surface area to mass ratio, they cool very quickly when removed from the heat source. Even aluminum melts at 660*C, and steel much higher.

 

No welding would be done on open decks while underway. There are strict protocols to be observed when cutting or welding, and adequate fire watches in surrounding areas to detect insipient fires from sparks is required. For this reason, outside welding would be done when the ship is stopped and the relative wind speed is minimized.

[Colo Cruiser]

Scary!!

Edited December 14, 2015 by Colo Cruiser

[chengkp75]

Scary!!

 

In 40 years of doing this, I think I've seen one fire started by these embers. You have to have the "perfect storm" of a mass of extremely combustible material located in a spot that is sheltered from the wind of the ship's passage. Generally, these things will burn little holes in things and then self-extinguish due to cooling.

[WISH84]

OMG! You reminded me of something. When we were on the top deck at the back of the ship looking down someone had a clothes line strewn with clothes draped across their balcony! I took a picture because I thought it was so funny. Now I realize it could have been not so funny. I'll post the picture once I get home from work.

 

We saw this too. My wife commented about how Beverly Hillbillies it looked.

 

:cool:

[rob2102]

Big diesel engines can produce sparks. Don't know if they are ember appearing. Very common with railroad locomotives.

[CineGraphic]

Sparks coming out of a smokestack, hardly strange.

[xavier]

Sparks coming out of a smokestack, hardly strange.

 

That may be true but from the vantage point of sitting on a balcony at the aft of the ship you can't tell the origin of the Sparks. We had no,idea where they were coming from other than up.

[Whimsy]

We were on the same sailing, Dolphin 711. Never noticed anything out of the ordinary. Not being all the way aft probably kept us from noticing. I would of been alarmed too, if I saw red embers!

[baronessk]

Saw it on the Crown years ago. First I thought it was a shooting star. Then I realized it was from the smoke stack.

[MTJSR]

Ding, ding, ding. Shogun is the winner.

 

Late at night, the ship will "blow tubes" to clean the flue pipes of the boilers. This uses steam to power off the soot that stick to the tubes, and these flakes are usually so hot they glow like embers. Another maintenance that is done at night is to clean the turbochargers of the diesel engines. Ground up walnut shells are blown into the exhaust side of the turbocharger to "sand blast" soot from the turbo blades. These bits of nut shell are in exhaust gas at about 400*C, so they tend to burn up as well. Sometimes late night strollers will comment about the smell of roasting nuts. Obviously, the engineers and the bridge officers didn't get on the same page about wind direction, as there is normally a change in ship's heading to ensure the embers trail away aft of the ship.

 

These embers are not hot enough to melt metal. Due to their large surface area to mass ratio, they cool very quickly when removed from the heat source. Even aluminum melts at 660*C, and steel much higher.

 

No welding would be done on open decks while underway. There are strict protocols to be observed when cutting or welding, and adequate fire watches in surrounding areas to detect insipient fires from sparks is required. For this reason, outside welding would be done when the ship is stopped and the relative wind speed is minimized.

 

Why on gods (green :eek: brown blue red yellow) earth would there not be deck staff stationed nearby to watch for stray embers? It was suspected to be one cigarette butt that took out over 100 cabins on the Star Princess.

 

 

.

Edited December 15, 2015 by MTJSR