Speculation Continues
Around Carnival Ecstasy's Swerve?
By Mike Groves
Okay so I admit it, I was almost suckered in by Carnivals story that they swerved their cruise ship Carnival Ecstasy to avoid a wayward Buoy in my May 2nd article! In my defence however, I was still asking why on earth would such a reckless and stupid decision be made to even bother avoiding a small Buoy, it wasn’t exactly an Ice Berg!
Since initial reports on the incident went to print, it now appears to all and sundry that the real story was nothing to do with a buoy at all, no it was even worse – some ‘buoy wonder’ on the bridge was actually going to run the ship aground! Now we’ve all heard of Carnivals famous shore excursion but even this would be taking it a little to far.
Links to Cruise Law articles dated April 26, 27 & 28 http://www.cruiselawnews.com/?source=cruisebruise & from Cruise Bruise Editor, Jan Huggard
Often in order to fully gauge what really happened during an event on board a cruise ship you would need to be there, but of course Jan and I are not really partial to cruises anymore. So as well as our own investigative journalism we are often supported with additional information from passengers and crew, and I can assure you we have quite a few contacting us on a regular basis with superb intelligence, and eyewitness accounts. However not many can say they are a retired USCG [United States Coast Guard] mariner or a USCG licensed Master, fortunately for us but not so for Carnival, two of their guests on board Carnival Ecstasy were just that and have since contacted me.
Only a few days ago I received the following email from one guest and which I have sanitized for obvious reasons -
Hey Mike I would like to clarify a few things.
I was a passenger on the Ecstasy and found many things that have been said well over stated or in the least misleading.
1. There were not 500 people injured.
2. The list was not long enough for people to get life jackets before the listing stopped, at best the ship listed for 2 to 3 minutes.
Things I agree with:
1. The ship listed more then 12 degrees and I agree that it was more like 35 or 40 degrees.
2. The whole day on the TV you could see we were headed toward a low-lying reef. The listing occurred just as we came upon that reef.
3. We did hit a buoy since a person at our dinner table described to me he saw a buoy pop up in the aft of the ship (he had a balcony in the aft). The buoy that he described was a marker Hazard buoy. I will give you more info on how I know this in the bottom of the note.
4. A thing that I have not seen mentioned is the bridges first excuse of why they had to do such a severe manoeuvre, they said it was a gyroscope malfunction. Then came on 10 minutes later (after the officers were called to the bridge) and said that they had to avoid a rogue buoy that had let lose of its mooring and was partially submerged which caused them not to see it or come up on the radar. The issue with this is a lose buoy is a rare thing, second even if it was partially submerged the buoy would still be giving off a signal the battery and electrics are water tight.
SO to fill you in on my background, I am retired US Coast Guard and worked for over a year on the USCG Bittersweet out of Woods Hole. Buoys are moored to move form side to side in case they are hit and will not do much damage to a large ship. The excuse (2nd excuse) is BS. I agree with your findings 100% they were about to run aground at 14 knots which would have done severe damage to the boat and most likely would have injured hundreds and may have killed many.
Thank you for following through with this. I would like to finally hear the truth.
Our second caller is actually in favour of ‘something’ floating in the water being the reason for the swerve –
Yeah, I was on the Ecstasy cruise. Actually I was on deck during that "horrible incident". The ship indeed listed, maybe 5 degrees, (no, I do not drink, so I was not inebriated), and yes indeed there was a floating, partially submerged object. The "land masses" you claim were there were not to be seen.
I am USCG licensed Master, any tonnage any ocean, and am impressed by your presentation of "facts". This is certainly a nice way to "substantiate" people's lawsuits.
As our USCG mariner clearly states buoys are designed to move from side to side, and from my own experience more up and down, taking into account some residue wave movement around its anchorage points. So in layman’s terms there will always be more movement up and down rather than it swinging all over the place from side to side. It’s not much use marking a specific point if it’s sitting some distance from it!
So I also decided to look at this ‘buoy’ a little more closely although I no longer believe this was the route cause of the swerve.
Our initial focus was towards a buoy, number 42360, (opens in a new browser) to be exact which belongs to Petrobras*. This was marked with a red circle in one of Jan’s nautical maps. Buoy 42360 is a submerged buoy and its exact location is recorded as 26.700 N 90.460 W (26°42'0" N 90°27'36" W).
Degrees of latitude and longitude can be further subdivided into minutes and seconds: there are 60 minutes (') per degree, and 60 seconds (") per minute. For example, a coordinate might be written 65° 32' 15". Degrees can also be expressed as decimals: 65.5375, degrees and decimal minutes: 65° 32.25', or even degrees, minutes, and decimal seconds: 65° 32' 15.275".
All these notations allow us to locate places on the Earth quite precisely – to within inches. http://nationalatlas.gov/articles/mapping/a_latlong.html
Buoy, Oh Buoy, Oh BOUY!
Will Carnival ever lie straight in bed?
By Mike Groves QGM
Cruise Bruise Security And Safety Advisor
May 22, 2010
