Why cruise ships sink

Cruise ships typically have highly sophisticated and highly reliable navigational systems, but even the most sophisticated electronic system can fail at times. While Mother Nature likely has the first say in whether a small boat like a yacht, a ferry, or sailboat sinks, these smaller boats can also sink for a variety of reasons including low transoms, faulty drain plugs, cooling system leaks, and more.

The standard evacuation signal is seven short horn blasts followed by one long horn blast. This indicates the captain and crew are telling you to start evacuating. The primary goal of any emergency evacuation is the safe and prompt removal of passengers and crew from the sinking boat.

Modern-day pirates use sophisticated technology that rivals the navies of some countries. Armed with missile launchers, torpedoes and interception devices, they are able to effectively board, loot and eventually sink the vessels that they attack. Generally, piracy results in the ship and the crew being held for ransom. However, sometimes the ships are too massive for the pirates to manage, and hence the bottoms are scuttled once the attack is complete. To combat piracy-related activities, several navies patrol the waters around dangerous zones such as the coastline and the Horn of Africa.

These locations are a hotbed of criminal activity, and some countries have taken to setting bases up at strategic positions to protect ships passing through these waters. Although ships are at the mercy of the elements, there are still steps that can be taken to prevent untoward incidents from happening. Regular maintenance and checks of individual components that make up the ship are essential to ensure that the vessel runs smoothly and has a long life. Although cost-cutting is often the reason behind skipping checks, they actually reduce the life of the vessel, making it costly to the parent company.

In addition, properly training the crew and having adequate personnel on board can reduce human error and negligence.

By making the crew aware of the safety protocol to be followed, the damage can be reduced, and lives can be saved. Along with this, properly designing the vessel can eliminate problems that are not apparent initially.

For instance, faulty propulsion valves have serious consequences, but cannot be identified during the sea trials. Also, properly plotting the route and following basic safety guidelines laid down by the SOLAS is essential to curbing accidents that may lead to a ship sinking.

When talking of ships that have capsized, the most famous example that comes to mind is that of the Titanic. While crossing the Atlantic, the ship struck an iceberg and promptly sank due to flooding. As the fore hull was damaged, the forward bulkheads took on water. As water filled the holds near the bow, the weight of accumulating water thrust the stern upwards.

The building shear force on the hull eventually split the vessel in two. An official inquiry into the cause for the sinking yielded information that the damage caused by the iceberg was far more serious than anticipated by the officers on the bridge, and that poor visibility and lax patrolling had led to the collision.

As a result, no action was immediately taken, and evacuation was significantly delayed. In addition, inadequate lifeboats resulted in thousands of people losing their lives, as they were either stuck on the sinking ship or died of hypothermia due to the freezing cold ocean temperatures. Another notorious tragedy was the sinking of the Costa Concordia on 13th January off the coast of Tuscany in Italy. Built-in the Fincantieri Shipyard for the Costa Crociere cruise line, the vessel was one of the largest ships built in Italy.

During a cruise around the coast of Italy, the ship struck a rock which led to heavy flooding on the port side. Short-circuited electrical equipment resulted in a loss of power to the propulsion systems. In addition, the building water pressure forced the vessel into an irreversible list that eventually ran the ship aground, on the Isola del Giglio, located off the coast of Italy.

Evacuation started nearly an hour late and the rescue took more than six hours, which led to the death of thirty-two passengers. In addition, severe damage to the hull resulted in the ship eventually being scrapped at a shipyard in Genoa.

The captain of the vessel was found guilty of manslaughter, as negligence had resulted in the ship running aground. Although the resulting deaths were considerably fewer than that of the Titanic, it served as a reminder that without the proper precautions and safety protocols, accidents can occur.

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The article or images cannot be reproduced, copied, shared or used in any form without the permission of the author and Marine Insight. Tags: ship sinking. Besides writing, he balances chess and working out tunes on his keyboard during his free time. Current times have turned the minds of new sailors worldwide into automatons that respond only to a screen and what it expresses; the reasoning and the development of the imagination about what may happen under certain or some circumstances or conditions no longer apply as a first action, now they consult the navigation or safety devices to be able to act, without even reasoning the conditions of that moment.

Captain Ascencio is correct. Training, without proper experience and thinking constantly about your job and responsibilities, will not avert a disaster. Your email address will not be published. This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website Got it! In this article, we will closely examine 10 major reasons why ships sink. Cruise ships however, are inherently top heavy due to the height of the ship.

Cruise ships are quite literally skyscrapers at sea with sometimes as many as 14 or more decks stacked on top of each other. To help compensate for this extra weight, cruise ships are designed with ballast tanks so that they can stay stable in the water. Large cruise ships will have multiple ballast tanks that can be adjusted to maintain proper balance as well as passenger comfort during rough weather. Despite the appearance of being unstable, cruise ships can actually roll as much as 60 degrees before being at risk of tipping over and capsizing.

They are also designed to withstand waves as high as 50 feet and some - especially those designed for Arctic and Antarctic voyages have re-enforced hulls to avoid breaches due to ice. While sailing ships have very deep keels, often with a heavy weight on the end to keep it stable, cruise ships are generally rounded bottoms with usually no more than 30 feet of the vessel below the surface of the water.

For instance, the Norwegian Bliss, has a Additionally, by design, many of the heaviest portions of the cruise ship will be found below the waterline such as the engines, fuel tanks, cargo, and of course the ballast tanks. This helps to ensure that even though the ship may appear to be top heavy due to the towering decks far above the water This allows the ship to maintain a level of stability that is both comfortable for the guests as well as safe for operation.

In , the New York Times did a study and found that between and , 16 cruise ships have sunk, with most being in inhospitable waters doing adventure cruises such as visiting Antarctica or smaller vessels that got caught in sudden storms such as the Estona, which sank in killing more than people in the Baltic Sea. As a first time guest on a cruise ship you might think that capsizing is something that you need to worry about but considering that cruise ships are constantly sailing the ocean, carrying as many as 30 million passengers in , the 16 cruise ship catastrophes mentioned above present only a minuscule chance that you will experience a tragedy on your next cruise.

Any one of these can result in your cruise ship being adrift at sea except running aground. However, with the exception of other circumstances such as storms, or when the hull gets punctured due to running aground on rocks, these will generally not be life threatening for most guests. For the most part, storms can be easily predicted due to the excellent weather prediction technology we have access to today. However, there are occasionally rogue waves that can cause significant danger to a cruise ship.

These waves, sometimes measuring as high as feet tall, are extremely rare and even if your ship experiences one, it is unlikely to cause your cruise ship to capsize or sink. With a properly trained cruise using modern technology - which all of the major cruise lines such as Holland America Line, Royal Caribbean, Princess, Norwegian Cruise Lines, and Carnival all have at their disposal, the bridge crew will be able to detect a rogue wave minutes or more before it poses a risk to the cruise ship.