Passenger Vessel Services Act

[AmazedByCruising]

 

 

8 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

Who cares about casino boats? 

 

I put that completely wrong, sorry. I meant to say that the PVSA isn't really about casino boats anymore,  not that many are interested in visiting or working on those. In fact I wish we had them over here.

 

9 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

  The US has stricter regulations regarding training, certification, equipment standards and maintenance than the international conventions like SOLAS, just as Holland does for their flag ships like HAL, so to me that makes them safer at least in concept and in control.

 

Please do not hold me accountable for what my goverment does, but in this case they might be doing the right thing 😃

 

8 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

You say that putting an artificial limit on "500 passengers" would be easy to put into law.  However, that is easy to put into law for the US, but once you are dealing with international commerce (i.e. different countries' flag ships) you must have laws that are acceptable to those countries as well, as well as not passing laws that contravene international treaties.

 

 

A cruise ship using any flag that wants to visit a US port once a year must have the right kind of screws for cleaning purposes all year round or they can't enter. As long as no as other states don't object, and why would they, the US can make a law about screws. In that light, a 500 pax limit doesn't seem that hard. Actually, the US raids ships in international waters to look for drugs which is obviously not allowed by international law but, no other state really cares. 

 

8 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

You only need to look back at NCL's experiment in the PVSA trade, where they expanded their capacity far too quickly into a (at that time) very underused market, to see how that works

 

Those cruises were much more expensive than a regular cruise visiting some boring far port. Also, "it's no problem to forbid certain itineraries because no company would offer them anyway" is not a sound argument. 

 

8 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

Well, I leave it at this, since I know you will never change your opinion. 

 

Yes, we've had this dicussion many times and we must have reached the bottom going through each and every argument. It's unfortunate that you will never change your opinion either. I do thank you for explaining many things that are involved that I wouldn't have thought of. 

 

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, AmazedByCruising said:

A cruise ship using any flag that wants to visit a US port once a year must have the right kind of screws for cleaning purposes all year round or they can't enter. As long as no as other states don't object, and why would they, the US can make a law about screws. In that light, a 500 pax limit doesn't seem that hard. Actually, the US raids ships in international waters to look for drugs which is obviously not allowed by international law but, no other state really cares. 

 

Okay, you sucked me back in.  You are of course referring to the USPH VSP sanitation program.  In fact, the VSP is a program that took input from both the CDC and the cruise lines themselves to formulate the requirements.  Also, compliance with the VSP is not mandatory.  Compliance with the VSP means that the ship will not be inspected by USPH every time it enters US waters, which is actually the USPH mandate, and what they do for cargo ships.  This inspection every time a foreign ship enters a US port is an internationally recognized part of "quarantine", where the USPH meets it's mandate of preventing the introduction of disease into the US.  It really has nothing to do with passenger health while onboard the ship.  Virtually every nation has laws regarding inspecting ships for disease before clearing them into ports, and the VSP eases the burden on the cruise line if the ship had to be inspected every week, and a sampling of passengers had to be interviewed by the USPH regarding their health.

[chengkp75]

4 hours ago, ontheweb said:

All of this is important, and I appreciate your passion. But, does it really protect us? I'm sure the captain of the Costa ship who soiled the reputation of captains everywhere was subject to the strictest rules. However, when common sense goes out the window and ego prevails, what good are all the protections in the world.

 

And I do realize that he is an exception to what real captains are.

While I do admit that Italian training and competency requirements are regarded as being among the most acceptable world wide, as are many Western European nations, and while I have always said that despite all the training in the world, no one knows whether they will face an emergency or run from it until it actually happens, there were indications concerning Schettino that would have raised flags with the USCG regarding his fitness to hold a Captain's license.  This was the fact that he had another allision with a jetty in Germany a few years before he joined Costa.

[AmazedByCruising]

16 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Okay, you sucked me back in.  You are of course referring to the USPH VSP sanitation program.  In fact, the VSP is a program that took input from both the CDC and the cruise lines themselves to formulate the requirements.  Also, compliance with the VSP is not mandatory. 

 

I'll just try to object to the phrase "not mandatory". Even the ships meant for the Chinese market only will adhere to US rules that aren't even law when just one of the ships in the fleet would visit Miami. And that's not even a written law. From personal experience, I know how much "input by the industry" is taken by government. "Please accept our offer and don't kill our industry". It's not as if the industry decided they actually needed to have someone looking at screws. "Let's use these screws, they seem to be much easier to clean. Yes such a good idea, we should ask goverment to inspect us and give us a penalties when we don't!" ~ nobody, ever.

 

Whatever the international definition of a passenger vessel is, cabottage rules are local rules and don't need to use that definition. I don't believe the US can't put a 500 pax limit in their own laws. 

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, AmazedByCruising said:

 

I'll just try to object to the phrase "not mandatory". Even the ships meant for the Chinese market only will adhere to US rules that aren't even law when just one of the ships in the fleet would visit Miami. And that's not even a written law. From personal experience, I know how much "input by the industry" is taken by government. "Please accept our offer and don't kill our industry". It's not as if the industry decided they actually needed to have someone looking at screws. "Let's use these screws, they seem to be much easier to clean. Yes such a good idea, we should ask goverment to inspect us and give us a penalties when we don't!" ~ nobody, ever.

 

Whatever the international definition of a passenger vessel is, cabottage rules are local rules and don't need to use that definition. I don't believe the US can't put a 500 pax limit in their own laws. 

Again, the ship chooses to comply rather than have that one port call be disrupted by a full inspection (which would be far more intense than the routine, surprise inspections that VSP ships submit to, and the disruption of having passengers held onboard or in the terminal for questioning before they could enter the country.

 

And if you read the preamble to the VSP, you will see that it was developed by a board consisting of industry representatives as well as public health officials, mainly to agree on what is "reasonably attainable" balanced against  best epidemiological practice.

 

And cabotage rules are not local rules, since you are placing restrictions on other countries' ships.  Again, this would require revoking our signing of the international treaties where the definition of passenger vessel is made.

[AmazedByCruising]

3 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Again, the ship chooses to comply rather than have that one port call be disrupted by a full inspection (which would be far more intense than the routine, surprise inspections that VSP ships submit to, and the disruption of having passengers held onboard or in the terminal for questioning before they could enter the country.

 

That's precisely what I'm saying. They "choose" to comply because there's no viable alternative. There's not much choice.

 

3 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

 

And cabotage rules are not local rules, since you are placing restrictions on other countries' ships.  Again, this would require revoking our signing of the international treaties where the definition of passenger vessel is made.

 

Where is the international accepted definition for a "far port"?  Why would the US be able to define "far ports" but wouldn't be able to define what kind of ships must visit one? You make it look as if the UN has a limited set of definitions with which you can define laws but in reality it's the US that can simply not allow a ship into its ports if it's not using the right kind of fuel or if it's not painted in the proper color. It's up to the ships to voluntarily comply or face bankrupcy. I really can't believe that the US cannot make its own distinction between a duckboat and a cruiseship.

[ontheweb]

14 hours ago, chengkp75 said:

While I do admit that Italian training and competency requirements are regarded as being among the most acceptable world wide, as are many Western European nations, and while I have always said that despite all the training in the world, no one knows whether they will face an emergency or run from it until it actually happens, there were indications concerning Schettino that would have raised flags with the USCG regarding his fitness to hold a Captain's license.  This was the fact that he had another allision with a jetty in Germany a few years before he joined Costa.

Hypothetical question.

 

Let's assume you are correct that the US Coast Guard would have a problem with his fitness to be  a captain. What if a ship on which he was the captain was sailing to a US port (for instance a transatlantic)? Would they be able to ban him from doing this, or would the fact that he was certified by the accepted Italian standards protect him? 

[chengkp75]

3 hours ago, ontheweb said:

Hypothetical question.

 

Let's assume you are correct that the US Coast Guard would have a problem with his fitness to be  a captain. What if a ship on which he was the captain was sailing to a US port (for instance a transatlantic)? Would they be able to ban him from doing this, or would the fact that he was certified by the accepted Italian standards protect him? 

Yes, the USCG has no jurisdiction over the issuance or retention of a foreign officer's license, whether he is sailing into the US or not.  Had the Concordia happened in US waters, the USCG could still not take Schettino's license away, they could only present their evidence and recommendations to the Italian Maritime Authority.  Only ships and officers from countries not on the IMO's white list can be denied entry into US waters.

[SRF]

On 5/18/2019 at 7:32 PM, AmazedByCruising said:

Aeroflot is not necessarily more dangerous than Delta. In comparison, most of the ships are not All American either. In fact, Boeing is failing miserably lately when it comes to safety.

 

You obviously do not know the complete story of the 737 MAX crashes.

 

It is not a failure of Boeing, but a failure of the crews that were flying them.  

 

In the case of the Ethiopian Air flight, the copilot had less than 300 hours TOTAL flying experience.  And that crew did several things wrong that contributed to the crash.

 

Same thing with Lion Air.  They did the correct initial response, but never looking into the emergency checklist to see what the next step was.  They did the initial step 25 times, without looking in the checklist for the next step.  The previous flight in the same aircraft had the same issue, but it was not properly reported, so they flew the airplane again.  And the only reason the previous flight did not crash was that a 3rd pilot was riding jumpseat and he knew what the next step to do in the situation.

 

Also, EVERY 737 ever built has 2 or 3 (I forget off the top of my head) trim failure modes that have the same response from the to crew to deal with.  The MAX added one more failure mode, but the RESPONSE TO IT IS THE SAME AS THE OTHERS.   So by not responding properly to the MAX failure, means they would not have responded properly to any of the other failure modes.

Edited May 20, 2019 by SRF

[AmazedByCruising]

On 5/20/2019 at 7:52 PM, SRF said:

You obviously do not know the complete story of the 737 MAX crashes.

 

True, I only read the news that Boeing planes were held to the ground because they seemed unsafe. I apologize for my strong wording.

 

 

[AmazedByCruising]

On 5/19/2019 at 11:02 PM, chengkp75 said:

And if you read the preamble to the VSP, you will see that it was developed by a board consisting of industry representatives as well as public health officials, mainly to agree on what is "reasonably attainable" balanced against  best epidemiological practice.

 

I can't find the phrase "reasonably attainable", are we both looking at https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/vsp/docs/vsp_operations_manual_2018-508.pdf ?

 

From which:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) established the Vessel Sanitation Program
(VSP) in the 1970s as a cooperative activity with the cruise ship industry. The program assists the
cruise ship industry in fulfilling its responsibility for developing and implementing comprehensive
sanitation programs to minimize the risk for acute gastroenteritis.  

 

I certainly do recognise "cooperative" and "its responsibility". Roughly translated, "cooperative" means "we first made impossible demands, based on the knowledge and experience of our newest intern, and after many sessions we got to a list of rules that the bigger companies loved and will kill the smaller ones, making our job much easier. "

 

"its responsibility" means "if people do die, it's certainly not our fault".

 

I wish such phrases were less familiar than they are. 

[SRF]

15 hours ago, AmazedByCruising said:

 

True, I only read the news that Boeing planes were held to the ground because they seemed unsafe. I apologize for my strong wording.

 

That was a knee jerk reaction to the situation.

 

I have several friends who fly 737s, and have discussed this with them.  There is also a great analysis of the two mishaps, written by two airline pilots with a lot of experience between them.