Thomson Majesty

[Ron Kendall]

5 Seafarers killed, and several more injured , when a lifeboat dropped 60 feet during a lifeboat drill in Santa Cruz harbour, Tenerife earlier today., from the Thompson chartered Louis Cruise Lines ship, which is Greek owned, and registered in Valletta, Malta.

[Rocky]

Sad news but why can the press not get the facts right before reporting or is it a case of stuff the facts get it out first and say sorry later

We flew the red duster because we were British ships registered here no matter who chartered us we were still registered here this cruise ship is not registered here and never has been but the charter company is might as well say Suzuki and Kawasaki are British because i have bought and rode their bikes here in the UK

the proof they only have half the story comes with this direct copy n paste claiming they don't know sex or nationality then state where they are from

The nationality and sex of those who died was not known, a government statement said. Spanish media reported that three of the victims were from Indonesia, one was from the Phillippines, and one was from Ghana. All were believed to be crew.

proof of copy n paste is in the spelling mistake for Philippines

[Colin Hawken]

if I couldn't find a cruise ship with a complete British crew fom the Captain down to the Galley Boy,I'm not going on a cruise.Saw most of the World when I was being paid for it,anyway.

[Don Rafferty]

Taken from Wikipedia:


The cruise ship concerned on charter to Thomsom uses an earlier type of lifeboat release mechanism, requiring detailed knowledge of the controls activated in a strict sequence.


Not sure how relevant this is, but a sad loss of life, whatever the circumstances.

[robpage]

BBC News - Thomson Majesty cruise ship accident leaves five dead

Being a dinosaur , I always thought that you needed some training to lower a boat , According to the BBC a winch broke loose , that is scary , cannot imagine what part of maintenance missed that impending failure

[Rocky]

Hey we missed out on reporting this first lets drag up some disaster stuff to mix in taken from the independent

SIMON CALDER

Sunday 10 February 2013
Simon Calder: There is no real connection between the Thomson Majesty and the Costa Concordia disaster
Five lives have been tragically lost during a routine drill in the port of Santa Cruz, but this sad event is an industrial accident, not a calamity threatening all on board.

And the fail online oops sorry mail online made the same connection

Do these ships carry a trained deck crew or do they just grab all hands to man the ropes for docking by law they need so many ticketed ab`s on board but the skipper wont be getting his hands dirty or the mate on a ship like that even if all the bridge officers have a ticket what good are they if not being used might as well hand out bogroll with crayons to write ab`s ticket on it can a bus driver legally drive his bus without a licence if an inspector back at the depot has one

If they don't have the trained staff refuse to let them sail till they get some after all the safety of paying customers should come before saving a few bob on wages OK we don't know for sure if it was old gear that they did not have any training on or if the gear failed either way fully trained crew could have prevented this from happening

[Glenn Baker]

I just wonder if those Poor crew members had been through a recognised Lifeboat training facility and obtained a Certificate Of qualified Lifeboatman before signing on their Foreign Flagged Cruise liner.
With lifeboat aquipment such as those used on this Specific ship youd hope you never had to use them at all.
We are witnessing a total reversal of Certificated standards on everything. Cheap Labour is no excuse for safety.

Can you picture what would happen on some of these foreign owned and Registered ships if fire swept through their decks.
If there is an enquirie it will be interesting to see the result, I suspect they will turn it around to mistakes or errors made in the lowering procedure of the lifeboat. Glenn Baker Certificated lifeboat ticket at St Katherines Dock london many moons ago.

[j.sabourn]

Dont know the story as have not sighted in the media out here yet. However as many fatalities of seamen rarely seen by the media or play down as probably they do not consider as news, unless they have nothing else to print. I notice the trend of members of this site have a tendency to refer to proper crews most of the time as when crews nationality not mentioned you can bet your bottom dollar they are 3rd. world. During my time at sea as have stated before, have been with a lot of foreign crews, and my preference has always been towards British or British trained crews. When this was brought up in some post previous there were those who disagreed with this, and they are certainly entitled to their own ideas on the subject. Many theorys were brought up why the demise of such occured, some blamed unions, others high wages, others government interference for work for third world countrys. The simple fact is convenience and cheapness. Believe me the standards that most of us grew up with 40 and 50 years ago does not exist nowadays. This accident appears to have happened on a passenger vessel, which to me are usually down by the head with crew members of different ranks and jobs. On the average cargo ship nowadays you would be hard pushed to find 5 seamen to lower a boat never mind anything else. The standards what I saw and have heard of in the past 15/20 years have gone that far backwards it is not funny. My sympathy to the familys of the 5 lost seafarers, but without further info. my immediate reaction whether right or wrong is, here we go again, some further addittions to the Safety Manual and forget about. The apparent loss of our maritime heritage and all the accompanying safeguards to our way of life at that time, no longer exists. Regards John Sabourn

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi All.
Trained or not there is always a chance that something could go wrong. On one ship in Sydney we were having lifeboat drill, [just as well we did.] all trained lifeboat men but one of the davit's buckled
and the boat ended up hanging from one fall, one bloke in the water the other hanging on, no injuries, but no fault with the blokes handling the falls, just metal fategue
Cheers Des
sigpic3705_1.gif

[j.sabourn]

Totally agree Des there will always be accidents whether ashore or otherwise. However as regards Shipping, it should not be a matter for waiting for structure or machinery failure. Under the old systems we knew there were proper annual or whatever surveys carried out at specific periods to look for same, this came under the Merchant Shipping Acts which British tonnage strictly adhered to as per BOT regulations and through the insurance companys like Lloyds or Norske Veritas, look at your plimsol marks they usually show either LR or NV. I know on foreign flag ships I was approached at various times to overload which I always refused to do. Ships surveyors whether BOT or Lloyds were always to my experience, very well experienced and mostly ex shipmasters or Ch. Engs. themselves and were also above this. In the latter years before retirement you were getting people onboard who said they were surveyors conducting LSA surveys (Life Saving Apparatus) with a check list and a University degree who had never been to sea and only knew what they had written down on their check list, this must have been the advance guard for the changes which were even then happening. Apart from losing the Red Ensign, when a ship goes foreign registry it loses all the wealth of knowledge which the British registered ships had. That is one reason I get a bit incensed when people talk about certificate structure and the British ones having to come down to the lowest denominator. I doubt if there is more than a handful of experienced BOT examiners as we knew them around today. To me further bad judgement to our parliamentary and so called knowledgeable nitwits. Cheers John Sabourn.