Prima broke moorings in Zeebrugge

[flamingos]

Cruise ship NORWEGIAN PRIMA broke off her moorings in the afternoon Jul 15 at Zeebrugge, in strong wind weather. Gangways were dragged and fell into water. No injures, the majority of passengers went ashore. 

 

 

https://www.fleetmon.com/maritime-news/2023/42433/cruise-ship-norwegian-prima-broke-moorings-lost-ga/

[shof515]

this is why ships skip port when there is heavy gusty winds

[insidecabin]

15 minutes ago, shof515 said:

this is why ships skip port when there is heavy gusty winds

Some will be saying they should have tendered.

 

 

[hallux]

I wonder if the gangways damaged the ship at all.  That one that went completely into the water might have posed a problem for coming back to the pier, but I'm really surprised the people on watch in the bridge didn't get propulsion up quicker to try to keep the ship closer - I wonder if there weren't enough generators online to do that...

[BirdTravels]

52 minutes ago, insidecabin said:

Some will be saying they should have tendered.

If it is too windy for the big ship, then you would not be tendering. 

[BirdTravels]

1 hour ago, shof515 said:

this is why ships skip port when there is heavy gusty winds

 

People always complain about skipping ports and accuse the cruise line of selling itineraries they have no intention of running. "Well, Celebrity docked, why didn't we???" The cruise line will do everything possible to make a port. If it ends up being unsafe, then the captain should skip it. 

 

Here is an example from our port call in Costa Maya on a windy day. The azipods and bow thrusters were running to keep us up pushed against the dock. But, the winds were driving waves up against the ship and over the gangway. If you ran down the slippery gangway when directed by the crew, you were o.k. If you walked too slowly or didn't listen to the crew, you would get a wave up side your head and be soaking wet... which displeased some who insisted on docking. 

 

Fortunately, you could check out, use, and check in a beach towel on the dock 🙂 

 

 

 

 

[schmoopie17]

46 minutes ago, BirdTravels said:

If it is too windy for the big ship, then you would not be tendering. 

Captain: "Maybe we should tender. Or maybe we should dock."

 

Since this took place in Zeebruggee, this is the epitome of a Belgian waffle.

[julig22]

1 hour ago, BirdTravels said:

 

People always complain about skipping ports and accuse the cruise line of selling itineraries they have no intention of running. "Well, Celebrity docked, why didn't we???" The cruise line will do everything possible to make a port. If it ends up being unsafe, then the captain should skip it. 

 

Yes, people forget that when you get off the ship you also have to be able to get back on!  

Went to Antarctica and got oooh so close to getting off in Stanley.  As close as sitting in the theater waiting for the tenders to return after getting checked out at the port when the dreaded announcement came over the PA system.  Tenders were having trouble docking at that time and the weather report wasn't looking good for later in the day.  So while we might have been able to get to the port there was a good chance we wouldn't have been able to get back to the ship at the end of the day.

Not fun having to time your transition onto the ship so you don't get bashed on the head - or worse.

[jtrollin]

18 hours ago, hallux said:

I wonder if the gangways damaged the ship at all.  That one that went completely into the water might have posed a problem for coming back to the pier, but I'm really surprised the people on watch in the bridge didn't get propulsion up quicker to try to keep the ship closer - I wonder if there weren't enough generators online to do that...

 

I was on this cruise, I didn't see any damage to the ship except for some scraped paint.

 

 

[luv2kroooz]

19 hours ago, shof515 said:

this is why ships skip port when there is heavy gusty winds

??? But the Prima was alongside the pier when this happened.

[hallux]

4 minutes ago, luv2kroooz said:

??? But the Prima was alongside the pier when this happened.

Yes, and the wind was so strong as to be too much load on the mooring lines causing them to break.  Could they have used more lines?  Sure. One way to avoid this entirely is to have good weather reports and decide not to call at the port if the winds will be so strong as to be a possible hazard like this.

[ontheweb]

40 minutes ago, jtrollin said:

 

I was on this cruise, I didn't see any damage to the ship except for some scraped paint.

 

 

Thanks, good to know as our sailing date in early August keeps getting closer.

[Agent999]

11 minutes ago, luv2kroooz said:

??? But the Prima was alongside the pier when this happened.

 

Exactly. And had they skipped the pier due to the potential high wind weather reports, this incident would not have happened.

[chengkp75]

18 hours ago, hallux said:

I wonder if the gangways damaged the ship at all.  That one that went completely into the water might have posed a problem for coming back to the pier, but I'm really surprised the people on watch in the bridge didn't get propulsion up quicker to try to keep the ship closer - I wonder if there weren't enough generators online to do that...

The gangways are aluminum, the ship is steel.  Steel wins.  There would have been only one generator on line in port, not enough to even start the propulsion, but getting more on line only requires a phone call to ECR, and about 2 minutes to get the generator started and online.  Starting propulsion would then take a further 3-4 minutes, it's not just pushing a button.  It all depends on how quickly the wind sprang up.  If it was a squall, it could have happened in an instant, without much warning.

[chengkp75]

2 minutes ago, Agent999 said:

 

Exactly. And had they skipped the pier due to the potential high wind weather reports, this incident would not have happened.

And, if they had skipped the pier, they would have tendered, and that would have been shut down during the high winds.

[MagnoliaBlossom]

Bird, some of the worst weather situation with a docked ship has been in Costa Maya.  We saw the officers out staring in horror at the side of the ship as it was pounded into the side of the pier.  They stopped disembarking, tried to gather up those who were already off the ship and waited until rveryone was back on board, then departed.  We have missed CM several times because of winds, and yes, even as passengers screamed “but the Goodship Lollipop is docked”.   
 

sorry to hear about this event, hopefully they carry a spare gang plank 😱

[BirdTravels]

1 hour ago, luv2kroooz said:

??? But the Prima was alongside the pier when this happened.

Obviously from the videos, being tied up at the dock was not sufficient in these windy conditions.

 

In my post above, the Prima had azipods and bow thrusters running to hold us against the dock in the wind. It is a balance between holding the ship to the dock and stressing the dock. 

[www3traveler]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

The gangways are aluminum, the ship is steel.  Steel wins.  There would have been only one generator on line in port, not enough to even start the propulsion, but getting more on line only requires a phone call to ECR, and about 2 minutes to get the generator started and online.  Starting propulsion would then take a further 3-4 minutes, it's not just pushing a button.  It all depends on how quickly the wind sprang up.  If it was a squall, it could have happened in an instant, without much warning.

Chief,

A friend of  mine asked if these were the ship's gangways or did they belong to the port?  From the pictures I saw posted, I thought that the gangways were set too steep.

[chengkp75]

36 minutes ago, www3traveler said:

Chief,

A friend of  mine asked if these were the ship's gangways or did they belong to the port?  From the pictures I saw posted, I thought that the gangways were set too steep.

From the size of them, I think they are the port's gangways.  They looked very flat to me.

 

One thing I noticed from the video was the mooring winches "rendering" (the brake on the winch should be set to "slip" when a force less than the breaking strength of the line, so that it pays out rather than breaking, but it looked like the crew were trying to set the brakes harder as the ship moved off the pier, and this caused the lines to break.

[BirdTravels]

58 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

From the size of them, I think they are the port's gangways.  They looked very flat to me.

 

One thing I noticed from the video was the mooring winches "rendering" (the brake on the winch should be set to "slip" when a force less than the breaking strength of the line, so that it pays out rather than breaking, but it looked like the crew were trying to set the brakes harder as the ship moved off the pier, and this caused the lines to break.

Chief, looking at the videos, it looked like the ship lost all of the mooring lines used at that port. And with the wind conditions, I assume that they had extra lines out that day. Does this pose any operational issues with the ship? Do they carry sufficient reserve lines?

[www3traveler]

1 hour ago, chengkp75 said:

From the size of them, I think they are the port's gangways.  They looked very flat to me.

 

One thing I noticed from the video was the mooring winches "rendering" (the brake on the winch should be set to "slip" when a force less than the breaking strength of the line, so that it pays out rather than breaking, but it looked like the crew were trying to set the brakes harder as the ship moved off the pier, and this caused the lines to break.

Thank You Chief    Always apprieciate your insights

As always, I pray that all is ass well as possible in your world and with your family.

[chengkp75]

3 hours ago, BirdTravels said:

Chief, looking at the videos, it looked like the ship lost all of the mooring lines used at that port. And with the wind conditions, I assume that they had extra lines out that day. Does this pose any operational issues with the ship? Do they carry sufficient reserve lines?

I noted a couple of more things watching it again.  The mooring lines look white, with a short blue section shackled to the end at the dock.  This is pretty standard, the short section is called a "pennant", and is supposed to have less breaking strength than the main mooring line, so that the pennant should break, and only the pennant needs to be renewed.  That isn't what I'm seeing here, so someone goofed on purchasing the pennants.  The ship will have extra lines, maybe not a full set, but a good few.  Also, we don't know how long the lines are in total, or where they broke.  They can "end for end" a broken line (get the end that is on the mooring winch, tie an eye into it, and shackle the pennant to it for reuse), or splice two broken lines together.  Not 100% as strong as original, 70-80% if done right.  It doesn't look like they had extra lines out.

[BirdTravels]

On 7/16/2023 at 12:31 PM, shof515 said:

this is why ships skip port when there is heavy gusty winds

Today, Pride of America is scheduled to anchor and tender in Kona... with former Hurricane Calvin (now tropical storm Calvin) schedule to arrive. Port call? No Port Call?

[The Traveling Man]

On 7/16/2023 at 12:49 PM, BirdTravels said:

 

People always complain about skipping ports and accuse the cruise line of selling itineraries they have no intention of running. "Well, Celebrity docked, why didn't we???" The cruise line will do everything possible to make a port. If it ends up being unsafe, then the captain should skip it. 

 

Here is an example from our port call in Costa Maya on a windy day. The azipods and bow thrusters were running to keep us up pushed against the dock. But, the winds were driving waves up against the ship and over the gangway. If you ran down the slippery gangway when directed by the crew, you were o.k. If you walked too slowly or didn't listen to the crew, you would get a wave up side your head and be soaking wet... which displeased some who insisted on docking. 

 

Fortunately, you could check out, use, and check in a beach towel on the dock 🙂 

 

 

 

 

Yet you pay a pretty penny for the same experience at Disneyland or Six Flags!

[DebbieMacG]

We’ve just had a notification from NCL to say our port call in Zeebrugge on Prima on 7th August has been cancelled due to tidal restrictions, maybe they don’t have replacement gangways yet?