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A P&O cruise ship has collided with an oil tanker off the coast of Spain, injuring some passengers on board. Exacerbating the situation are the extremely tight schedules ships’ crews face to unload outgoing cargo and pickup inbound cargo before racing to the next port. That’s especially true of container ships, experts said, whose slots at ports are scheduled weeks in advance and must make it on time or miss the window. The 1,096-foot-long container ship Ever Lotus lost power while mooring at the Port of Los Angeles in November 2016.
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Ludeman was heading back to Phoenix, and said she was able to rebook her Sunday flight for Monday while at sea. Three years earlier, the 604-foot-long Manistee went dark as it was backing out of Ashtabula Harbor east of Cleveland. The engineer on watch forgot to throw a switch that would prevent the generators from overheating, leading to the outage. In the case of the Dali simulation, the unfortunate lesson was that there was little they could do to avoid a catastrophe once the power was down except alert others to their plight. The frequency of such malfunctions and the risks to life and property are at the heart of Cal Maritime’s simulation exercises, which train students how to react to the worst disasters in a controlled environment. Often the dividing line between major and routine came down to a last-minute effort by the crew or rescue teams.
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Fortunately, a pair of tugboats were able to rescue the U.S.-flagged vessel and tow it to safety, where it was determined a broken air compressor valve was to blame. Now, just a half mile from the span, the vessel has gone dark – no power, no steering, no propulsion. Inside the ship’s towering command center, the crew tries to re-engage the system but no luck. Visual documentation of the incident, captured by passengers, provided a tangible record of the encounter.
Hundreds of P&O Cruise Passengers Flown Home After Tanker Crash
The ship will remain docked to allow a technical team to make an assessment of the damage, according to the statement. In this narrative of maritime turmoil, Britannia's interaction with the storm echoed a previous incident involving Cunard's RMS Queen Mary 2, which also faced challenges due to adverse weather conditions. The BBC reported on Tuesday that 321 passengers were scheduled to fly back to Southampton. The Britannia, a vessel under P&O Cruises, drifted into the tanker on Sunday after its moorings broke during a storm along the coast of Palma in Mallorca.
VIDEO: P&O Britannia crashes into oil tanker amid Mallorca storm
The Britannia cost £473 million ($596 million) and can carry up to 3,647 passengers. Guests who were asked to leave will get a pro-rata refund of their fare for the days they missed and a 20% cruise discount to be used in the future. Britannia visited the port as part of a two-week, round-trip cruise from Southampton, England that departed Aug. 18, according to CruiseMapper.
Worldwide, between 1960 and 2015 ships or barges caused 35 major bridge collapses that killed 342 people, according to a 2018 report from the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure.More than half occurred in the United States. Despite the frequency of power failures and bridge strikes reported to the Coast Guard, the maritime shipping industry has had relatively few major accidents like the one that toppled the Francis Scott Key Bridge. “Lack of inspection, testing replacement/maintenance of the time delay relays” was to blame in February 2019, when the captain of the Portuguese container ship EMS Trader ordered an emergency lowering of the anchor. The ship had lost power, steering and propulsion not far from the Commodore Barry Bridge southwest of Philadelphia. At the time of the incident, Mallorca was already on an amber weather alert due to extreme winds and torrential rains. There have been 74 mph winds and torrential rains in Mallorca, with an amber weather alert in place across the island on Sunday.
Lloyd’s was unable to provide updated data, but a representative told USA TODAY incidents have continued to rise. “Captain, we are on a collision course with the bridge support,” announces the officer of the watch, who recommends dropping its anchor. A desperate call goes out to the shore to stop traffic from crossing the bridge. He was on the balcony of his cabin when the cruise vessel and tanker crashed, per the outlet. Flights from Barcelona airport were delayed throughout Sunday because of the high winds.
Even though the vessel’s crew was trained to slowly increase the pitch of the bow thruster so as to not overload the generators, “the pilot adjusted the pitch from 0% to 100% instantly,” according to the incident report. Coast Guard incident reports blame a host of culprits for the power outages reported by hundreds of ships over the years. They include unpredictable events like lightning strikes, fires on board or even fish clogging water inlets meant to help cool the engines. Although such disasters are rare, the conditions that could cause them are frighteningly common, according to a USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Coast Guard maritime incident data, which includes any reportable maritime event involving a death or injury, collision, grounding, environmental harm, or the loss of power and propulsion. The Britannia was blown by gales towards the other vessel on Sunday after a storm battered the island in the Balearics.
“A loud crash came from the bar and the door flung open with people running in. Within seconds there was more crashing followed by chaos as people were trying to escape the onslaught of wind and rain. Only one run involving tug boats averted the disaster, and even then only when two tugs at full power were tethered to the ship all the way under the bridge. That lineup is not a current day reality except in rare situations, such as tankers transporting oil or other toxins in certain ports.
“That’s when you’re giving all your engine orders,” said Calnan, the assistant professor of marine transportation who ran the simulation at Cal Maritime for USA TODAY. Calnan has operated large ships himself and has experienced what is sometimes known as a dark ship, though only while out at sea. On March 16, 2018, the bulk carrier Strategic Alliance lost power and propulsion on the Delaware River just north of the Commodore Barry Bridge, a 2.6-mile span connecting Philadelphia to New Jersey and carrying more than 41,000 vehicles a day. For the past half hour, the crew navigated the hulking vessel through relatively calm waters and lined it up to pass perfectly under the main truss of the steel bridge, softly lit in the early morning darkness. Another passenger shared videos on X of the ship guests waiting at the port terminal, which had debris from the storm outside.
“The guests remaining on board will be able to enjoy the entertainment and activities scheduled for the remainder of their trip." Ricky Stubbs, one of the passengers aboard, gave a play-by-play of the incident. In a report filed by The Guardian about the incident, he stated that a deafening crash echoed from the ship’s sunset bar as he and his children prepared to disembark. This was followed by a rush of people fleeing the impact and battling the fierce winds and rain. Hundreds of passengers on a P&O cruise ship that crashed into an oil tanker during a storm in Spain have been flown home. One of the Britannia's lifeboats was damaged, meaning the cruise was required to return to Southampton with a "reduced number of people onboard," and some passengers and crew were told they had to leave the ship, per the statement.
P&O Cruises ship collides with oil tanker, injuries reported - USA TODAY
P&O Cruises ship collides with oil tanker, injuries reported.
Posted: Mon, 28 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The investigation revealed about 16 gallons of water had leaked into the fuel oil supply tank. When the blackout occurred, the ship’s rudder was turned 3 degrees to the starboard side and remained stuck there as the vessel drifted off course. Its towering stack of containers acted as a sail for the wind, which aimed it directly at the bridge’s support column. USA TODAY’s data analysis revealed at least 2,600 bridge strikes occurring in U.S. waters since 2002, the earliest year for which such data is available. The majority, however, were minor – a ship’s antenna or mast hitting a bridge, or a barge clipping a bridge’s protective fender. Roughly 500 feet from the country’s longest suspension span – crossed by nearly a quarter-million vehicles a day – the ship was adrift with no steering, no propulsion and no engine.
Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. “Following inspections, our third-party surveyor has confirmed that one of Britannia’s lifeboats has sustained structural issues and cannot be repaired onboard. Heavy rains and winds have swept across parts of the Balearic Islands, including Mallorca, and Catalonia in northeastern Spain. The pair then went back onto the ship, and according to Gary ‘about eight seconds later’ the boat broke free of its moorings’. Mfame website is run by maritime professionals who have experienced many years of fuel usage, machinery problems and are interested in finding solutions. One of the people who witnessed the incident captured the scene in a video that has gone viral on social media.
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