NCL Hit with One Million Dollar Fine

[fin]

According to the AP, the line has been fined for the 2003 explosion which killed several crew members while docked in Florida.

[electricron]

According to the AP, the line has been fined for the 2003 explosion which killed several crew members while docked in Florida.

Could you please post the link?

[WinnieinWA]

I believe that was the travesty that happened aboard the Norway. It's pretty old news if that is it.

[smeyer418]

It was reported last week that NCL has plead guilty to a misdemeanor in connection with the explosion for failing to maintain the boilers properly. I don't think they had actually been sentenced yet. AP may be reporting that the judge did issue the fine. I haven't seen it but I thought the maximum fine was $500,000. In any case they have settled with all the crew and this closes the matter.

[Dale]

Could you please post the link?

This isn't from AP. It's from today's Miami Herald.

Miami Herald

[easygoesit]

According to the AP, the line has been fined for the 2003 explosion which killed several crew members while docked in Florida.

 

OLD NEWS.

[WinterSky]

According to the AP, the line has been fined for the 2003 explosion which killed several crew members while docked in Florida.

 

It was a real disaster that people died in this incident. Nothing can ever equal their loss of life.

 

The fine is a business issue arising out of the incident and was absolutely expected.

 

WinterSky

[fin]

OLD NEWS.

 

Tell Associated Press. It was the number two item on their "breaking news" website when I posted the info.

[electricron]

If you had taken the time to read the NTSB report's summary, the entire report would take months to read, you would have discovered that all four of the Norway's boilers needed to be replaced.

 

Besides the expense of fixing the boiler that failed, NCL faced the expense of fixing the other three boliers too.

 

Boilers aren't cheap, the SS Norway would have been out of service for months, if not years. Then there's the option to re-engine the Norway with diesel generators or gas turbines, which is also very expensive.

 

NCL and Star Cruises sold the SS Norway to the highest bidder. Sure, it would have been better if the highest bidder wasn't a scrap dealer, but that wasn't the case. Besides facing the loss of some of its crew, the medical expenses suffered by the crew that survived, the monetary loss from lawsuits, the monetary loss of future Norway cruises, and now the fines, the boiler explosion total losses probably exceeds two to three times this final court's judgement.

 

I'm suggesting $28 million to $42 million in total loses to NCL's bottom line. It may have been even more.

Adding another $100 to $200 million to re-engine the SS Norway, and who knows how much more to refurbish her for SOLAS is obviously a poor business.

 

It's much better business expense to build brand new ships, ones that can compete 10, 20, and possibly another 30 years.

[Dolphins]

I always felt it was a mistake for NCL to obtain the Norway. Steam turbines are no longer practical, she was too big for most Caribbean ports and lacked the many balconies currently popular. Newer ships are a far better investment. The Norway, the former France, was obsolete when she was built.

[NoPiratesPlease]

But the Norway was the BEST ship in a storm on the ocean. My wife asked "did we have a storm last night?" I said "Honey, remember those waves hitting the portholes? " she said "Yes...." I said "Our windows are 50 feet above the water--we were getting hit with 50 foot waves!" Never felt it. She was a magnificent deep-sea liner, handling it better than the QE2.

 

The International Club was the nicest public room we've ever seen on a ship. A little old fashioned, but elegant. Best ship trio ever played there: "Standard Time".

 

We had been on her just a few months before the explosion. It was a tragedy that 7 people were killed.

[smeyer418]

I always felt it was a mistake for NCL to obtain the Norway. Steam turbines are no longer practical, she was too big for most Caribbean ports and lacked the many balconies currently popular. Newer ships are a far better investment. The Norway, the former France, was obsolete when she was built.

They only sailed it for 20 plus years after they got....It had ebcome an albatross, It needed new engines systems which would have cost 100 of millions and then it still wouldn''t meet solas 2010.

 

I am sorry that the people died. We had seven people die from a crane in New York last month and no one blames the crane. The restitution is the money that NCL already paid the crew. It just looks good on the courts stats that "ordered" restitutions already paid. Cruise lines get fined all the time. I forget which one was fined millions for pollution violations. Some one else can look them up....I am sure Carnival never gets fined.

 

found one

 

http://www.fishingnj.org/artlinerspill.htm

 

 

Carnival was fined $18,000,000.00

 

http://www.cruisejunkie.com/largefines.html

[electricron]

I always felt it was a mistake for NCL to obtain the Norway. Steam turbines are no longer practical, she was too big for most Caribbean ports and lacked the many balconies currently popular. Newer ships are a far better investment. The Norway, the former France, was obsolete when she was built.

 

I wouldn't go so far and say that. It wasn't obsolete in the early 1960s, but by the early 1970s it was, as built. I thought NCL did a fine job converting the SS France into a cruise ship called the SS Norway.

What they didn't do a fine job at was maintaining the boilers. But, maintaining high pressure steam boilers isn't cheap nor easy. The France propulsion plant was designed to run full speed on a Trans Atlantic run for several days in a row, not overnight hops from island to island. And that's what got it in the end.

Cunard was wise to change the QE2 propulsion plant from steam to diesels when it decided to switch its primary purpose to cruising from Trans Atlantic. But even it is being retired this year, although intact in one piece. If NCL had maintained the SS Norway's boilers well, it too would be retiring this year or next.

NCL should have retired the SS Norway sooner, as many thought Star and NCL wanted to do in 2000 or 2001, if they weren't willing to replace the boilers or re-engine the SS Norway. But instead, they decided to stretch its life out as long as possible as it was to keep the Norway' fans happy. There were internal discussions on what would be the best solution for the SS Norway. NCL was in the midst of retubing the boilers, fixing what was breaking piecemeal. In hindsight, they should have spent more effort fixing what was causing the tubes to rupture instead of replacing the tubes repeately. If they had, the water header that eventually failed may not have.

When stretching your old car's life out longer than you really wanted, you would be just as guilty wanting to stretch out expensive repairs. You'll replace the tires, brakes, batteries, filters, etc; the consumables; as normal, but you would want to put off expensive engine overhauls as long as the engine ran.

[Dolphins]

The reason France (Norway) was obsolete the day she was built was because she was created for trans-Atlantic service at the dawn of the jet age. She was never profitable in her original role and when sold to NCL, hardly suitable for Caribbean cruising.