Carnival Legend Rams
Enchantment Of The Seas
By Mike Groves
At 1815 hours on Wednesday, 1 October 2009 a Carnival cruise ship, the Carnival Legend, collided with a Royal Caribbean ship, the 80.700 ton Enchantment of the Seas while she was pulling out of Cozumel, Mexico in an incident that has resulted in both vessels being damaged. Although in shipping terms, it will be classed as a minor incident. However, what always stands out here is the normal and immediate corporate response to play things down, just a little.
Certainly we are not intent to overplay this incident, but weighing in at 88,500 tons the Carnival Legend is still a hefty old weight to suddenly 'dent your fender’ when you are just sitting there minding your own business.
Carnival has since stated that the 2,124 passenger Legend had just left the berth [quayside] at the popular Mexican resort when it was caught by heavy winds and was ultimately pushed into the 2,446 passenger Enchantment of the Seas. Royal Caribbean also issued the following statement "Extremely strong winds pushed the vessel up against the side of Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas".
We now know that the Carnival Legend sustained broken glass and other minor damage to some open deck areas, which you can see in the pictures below.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruises/item.aspx?type=blog&ak=68500158.blog
The 963-foot-long Carnival Legend sustained damage over quite an extensive area. One witness on board the Royal Caribbean Enchantment, Mr. Greg Land of South Orange, N.J stated “the Carnival Legend then side-swiped the Enchantment with the two ships scraping each other's sides over about a 50 yard stretch”. Carnival has been quite keen to state the damage to their vessel was only "minor", but 50 yards is quite a distance. You can also see from the following picture that the ship’s outer skin [steal plates] was severely sliced open.
http://www.usatoday.com/travel/cruises/item.aspx?type=blog&ak=68500158.blog
The Enchantment suffered minor damage to the stern of the ship and some of her railings, so from this, one can deduce that her stern was the point of contact for the Legend.
This would either be as a direct consequence of the Carnival Legend turning too close or too early when passing the stationary Enchantment or otherwise as a direct consequence of the reported 50 knot winds.
At this height I would imagine the thickness of the steal is a standard 2-3 cm’s, clearly something went through this like a knife through butter.
You will also see that this particular picture shows that the damage is directly above, so it would appear, two shell doors [doors in ships side allowing access for gangways or stores].
These shell doors obviously need to be watertight in their own right and to enable this, they are surrounded by numerous hydraulic lines and securing bolts to perform the task once closed and made ready for sea.
All shell doors are displayed on the cross section plan of the vessel located on the ship's bridge, with green lights obviously indicating all is well and red lights highlighting that the door is not secure.
The upper section of the shell doors' appear to be untouched from this collision but the cuts through the outer skin is a concern, especially when so many hydraulics’ are passing through that point. A vessel would not be permitted to leave port without this being fully secured if found to be damaged.
From the pictures, Mr. Land’s account appears perfectly consistent with the vessels making contact and then dragging against one another for some considerable distance.
Another witness also stated, "As we're watching (the Legend), it's getting closer and closer. It looked like the wind was pushing the other ship toward us," writes the Royal Caribbean passenger who goes by the pen name TheOneBob. "I looked down and saw a tug boat try to get between the two boats, but it was too late. Then the collision became inevitable. There was some crunching and breaking glass noises and the ship rocked to one side a little." I have to say that was one rather brave tugboat Captain to try and place his small tugboat between such a vast ship bearing down on him, they could have been easily crippled and sunk themselves if unable to push her away!
Both ship’s officers and crew acted immediately, crew members on both vessels being called to their emergency stations as the two ship’s were in the final seconds of their ‘contact’
http://www.jacksonnjonline.com/2009/10/02/two-cruise-ships-collide-in-the-caribbean/
You can see a CGI of what some witness may have seen - (left)
I have been to the port of Cozumel on a number of occasions, and I wholeheartedly agree with one eye witnesses account regarding the ever changing weather there. It once took us 90 minutes just to get our vessel alongside and tied up – it is a nightmare at times!
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Carnival Legend Rams Enchantment Of The Seas
Nautical Fender Benders
By Mike Groves QGM
Cruise Bruise Security And Safety Advisor
October 3, 2009
