Thomson Majesty

[j.sabourn]

John will have to ask Capt. Kong when he gets back. Believe he has done a free fall in a lifeboat. In one of the posts somewhere. Cant see women and young kids making only as a last resort. Cheers John Sabourn

[j.sabourn]

When this was mentioned previoulsy was also referring to certificates which British ships had to comply with. A few of many were, Load Line Certificate, Safety Construction Certificate (annual) Safety Construction cert (5 yearly), L.S.A. cert.yearly or any snap inspection. There are others. De ratification cert. Many others which had to be kept up to date to keep the vessel in class. Also engine room had their own problems with continuous survey of machinery. With the changes in Rules so to speak, how many still conform to these standards now. Bypassing a lot of these would be worth a lot of extra earnings to any vessel and owners. Just a thought on those who go cruising, should ask when sitting at the Captains table if all his certificates of Class are up to date. Who knows he may even show you. Cheers John Sabourn

[Colin Hawken]

Does this come back to the well known saying,"Shipowners are B******s.Always have been,always will be?"

[Bill Bland]

Tuesday 12th feb. Brisbane paper states that one "Fall "carried away. Many a British ship that I was on, had to renew falls at a given period of time, unless Chief Officer thought period was to long, That was when we had lifebopat drill once every two weeks and gear was obsereved, any faults noted and attended to.

[j.sabourn]

Colin this depends on the shipowner and his conscience. I only worked for 4 British Deep sea companys. The one who I have the highest esteem for was John I Jacobs. Others who sailed with them may beg to differ. Referring back to obvious loopholes in the LSA equipment which would now I presume to be easier to circumvent with the changes in flag and laws as such. During my time in British ships it was normal practice ( believe this was compulsary by BOT) was the life of a wire lifeboat fall. If I remember the life span was 3 years. After 2 years the wire had to be end for ended and lasted a further year before being replaced. I may be slightly out in the time periods but am sure others may have advanced info. on this. I very much doubt whether this one of many normal practices carried out in our days, is still enforceable. I know I never saw applied on foreign flag, and even on one such vessel the lifeboats had been condemned for over 12 months before I joined, so I made no attempt to swing out. There are many things as I said associated with the good practices carried out under the Red Ensign, which will be to the best of my knowledge be now unenforceable, it was as stated not only the Red Ensign which was lost, but a lot of the good and normal practice of seamen. Regards John Sabourn.

[Evan Lewis]

Lifeboat Drill,Queen Mary ,Ocean Terminal, Southampton.

No1. (accident Boat) Lowered to Embarkation deck. Boat being retrieved ,the cut-out failed. One set of Falls ,tore apart. Boat was hanging in a

vertical position.held there. Miracle! As way below,was the Working gangway, Which ninety- nine percent of the time ,was teeming with

personnel,workmen etc.

Not sure now,Most likely 1956,if not, early sixties. Confirmation can be obtained,via Southampton Echo, as it was front page photograph ,that evening.
p.S. don't know the nationality of the winch operator?

[j.sabourn]

Would have been a lot worse if boat had been loaded with 60 or 70 persons or whatever the boat held. Cheers John Sabourn

[happy daze john in oz]

A couple of points. Holland America who own the Amsterdam, Oosterdam and others do maintain their ships to a very high standard. See them regularly here in Port Melbourne and have observed maintainance being carried out of life boats and their equipment.
On my last cruise we were one deck above the lifboats and i often stood on the balcony observing them being lowered and brought in. The equipment appeared to be in very good condition, hawsers well greased etc, but accidents will happen no matter how much care is taken.
Heard of the ship with engine failure, but if I recall we had similar events at sea in our time, this is not new. We think that all this new machinery is fool proof, but like any other man made piece of machinery it is subject to failure.

[Jim Dunster]

Got mine in Sydney. A lot warmer. When I got my book stamped in London they said they did not get many Sydney Certificates as they failed so many.

[Tony Morcom]

Courtesy of our friends @ gCaptain
Thomson Majesty Accident – Five Crew Killed During Lifeboat Drill on Cruise Ship [UPDATE 2]

By gCaptain Staff On February 11, 2013



Thomson Majesty photographed in 2007, while being operated by NCL. Image: Wikipedia

Update 2: We spoke with a lifeboat industry insider today about the specifics of the lifeboat system that ultimately killed 5 sailors. Preliminary investigations are pointing to a failure of the lifeboat hoisting cable. A photo of the cable supposedly taken by a passenger on the ship has been published by BBC, HERE.
A failure of one side of the hoisting cable, our source notes, would have resulted in the downward swinging of the lifeboat as the entire load of the lifeboat was taken up by the other lifeboat davit arm and cable. The combined dynamic load of the swinging lifeboat and the now doubled load on the other lifting cable may have caused it to part, resulting in the uncontrolled and upside-down fall of the lifeboat.
An accidental, or intentional release of the hook would have resulted in the lifeboat falling directly downward, while remaining upright.
In 2011, a Holland America cruise ship’s lifeboat fell uncontrollably when the winch used to raise the lifeboat did not stop when it came to to full hoist, causing the cable to snap. In that case, the operator of the lifeboat davit was improperly relying on an emergency stop device to trigger the winch to stop hoisting when it reached full hoist. In short, failure of the emergency stop device resulted in catastrophic failure of the system.
Update 1: Reports indicate that the lifeboat fell approximately 65 feet to the water, landing upside down. The five killed and three others injured were aboard the lifeboat when it was being launched and fell. The cruise ship is the Thomson Majesty,
Those killed are believed to be three Indonesians, a Filipino and a Ghanaian, Reuters has reported. None of the 1,498 passengers on board at the time were involved in the accident.
The Maltese-flagged MS Thomson Majesty is now owned by Louis Cruises.
In a statement, Thomson Cruise said the following:

Thomson Cruises can confirm there was an incident involving the ship’s crew during a safety drill on board Thomson Majesty, in La Palma, Canary Islands yesterday at 11:50am local time.
We can also confirm that there have sadly been five crew fatalities and three crew injuries. All three have been discharged from hospital and are back on board the ship. Our thoughts are with the families of those involved.
We are working closely with the ship owners and managers, Louis Cruises, to determine exactly what has happened and provide assistance to those affected by the incident. We are also working closely with all relevant authorities and are co-operating fully with their investigations.
As the authorities are currently conducting their investigations, we are awaiting confirmation of when the ship can continue with the cruise. We hope to receive this this morning and will advise customers as soon as we have an update.

Earlier:
By Patricia Laya
(Bloomberg) — Five people died and three were injured when a lifeboat dropped from a docked cruise ship operated by TUI AG’s Thomson during an emergency drill in the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma, in the Canary Islands.
All of the people involved were crew members, a spokeswoman for the ministry of public works said by phone, asking not to be identified in line with government policy.
The three injured are males in their early 30s, two of whom suffered mild concussions, said a police official on the island, who corroborated the details of the accident. The injured were taken to a hospital on the island of La Palma.
The cruise ship was operated by Thomson Cruises, the police official said. Thomson Cruises is a division of TUI Travel Plc, a majority-owned unit of Germany’s TUI. A message left at TUI Travel outside office hours wasn’t immediately returned.
Members of the national police and civil guard were called to the scene of the accident, according to the ministry spokeswoman.
Copyright 2013 Bloomberg.
File Photo. Image (c) Nightman1965/Shutterstock

In September 2012, the Cruise Lines International Association – of which Louis Cruises is a member – voluntarily adopted a policy in response to the Costa Concordia disaster requiring that crews conduct test launching and full loading of lifeboats at least once every six months for cruise ships with a crew sizes of three hundred or greater
Under the new policy, CLIA states that the full loading of lifeboats for training purposes is to be performed only while the boat is waterborne and, for safety considerations, the boat should be lowered and raised with only the lifeboat crew onboard.