Carnival Splendor

[jimmys]

News is just coming through that the above vessel has been disabled by fire off the West Mexican coast.
4500 people are aboard and the fire is in the aft engine room. She has no propulsion but some power and requires a tow.
She is of 2008 vintage and has all the latest podded propulsion and is diesel electric powered.
The passengers and crew are all safe.
This will not be a good advert for Carnival in their heartland. Engine rooms are dangerous. She has I think Wartsila engines and it is best to say no more at present.

regards
jimmy

[Doc Vernon]

Hi Jimmys
Well it is not the first time that one of these new Luxury Liners has been in strife,and i wonder why it is,that over the past few Years there have been the ammount of incidents as this!
I know we too in our days had our troubles with such things,but then the Ships were of an older type,but one would think in this day and age,things would be a lot better!
Oh well i suppose nothing is perfect in the Engineering World,and the only good thing about al this is that there are no injuries or casualties!
Thats a lot of People putting their lives at risk on these Modern Giants!
Lets hope that in the future there wont be another major disaster!
I think there are just too many passengers on these large Cruise Ships,and its all in the name of Money! The root of all Evil!
But its a vital Evil isnt it!
Cheers

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/n...-1225950820351

[happy daze john in oz]

If you consider the total nautical miles covered in any one year by the cruise industry then there will always be the possibility of a problem such as this one.Recent events here in Oz with new aircarft that had Rolls Royce engines that failed goes to show no mechanical system is fail proof. During our time there were problems with engine room fires, Windsor castle in Durban 1963, the explosion on the Cape Town are an example of what can occur. As long as man makes equipment there will always be the risk of problems.

[Neville Roberts]

I think its a good job that most of the liners today dont do much deep sea , constantly crossing the oceans of the world , what a mess that would be if they gotstuck in the middle of one , most of them are always close too land as in the medi ,carribean ,or the east indies .& coastal sailings

[Captain Kong]

Thats right Neville, Not much good being on fire with 4500 people on board in mid Atlantic doing somersaults in a North Atlantic winter storm, no help there.There is only one ship left that is built for the winter North Atlanic and that is the QM2.
Can you imagine trying to get 4500 people into life boats and the rest into rafts, when a ship is in the western ocean rolling like a bast*rd, there has to be a lot of fatalities.

[jimmys]

It now seems they are towing her to San Diego. It would seem all her main engine room power is down and the emergency generator is the only engine running.
On these ships you must remember the power needed for hotel services that is air conditioning , sewage, galleys, fridges, lights, lifts and all the rest is very substantial and emergency generators cant supply it. I am not familiar with the Carnival Splendor but her full hotel service load could be in the thousands of Kilowatts needing a substantial diesel engine.
We need to find out what caused the fire first.
I note the Chief Designer of the QM2 is Stephen Payne a Naval Architect, not qualified to go to sea. I wont be crossing the North Atlantic in her, I would not cross the Channel in her.

regards
jimmy

[Colin Hawken]

Neville,I don't want to pick a fight but,you say about today's cruise liners not doing much deep sea? What about when they are on a World Cruise? P&O do this,also all three Cunard Queens will be doing this next year. For those that can afford it,you can use all three Queens to do a World Cruise,changing Ships en route as you wish.Does this not count as deep sea? One of them at least will cross the Pacific.I seem to remember that being a large deep sea. Like I said,I'm not being picky,it's just a thought that occured to me.Living more or less on the banks of Southampon Wate with an unrestricted view of the Docks,I'm fairly up with the Liner movements. Please don't take these comments the wrong way.

[Captain Kong]

You are right Hawkeye, I have crossed the western ocean a few times on QE2 and QM2 and on the North Pacific, Japan to L.A. With a trip around Cape Horn to Frisco Bay, No problems.
The QE2 had the 100 Foot wave in 1995, I joined her the trip after, she had a large dent on her fore deck where thousands of tons of ocean crashed on her. Many passengers didnt even know about it. but again she was built proper in a proper yard, all the others are built in Germany, France and Italy. I dont trust them too much except QM2, I sailed with Mr Paine the designer of QM2 twice, he seemed to know what he was talking about, tho` I am not an engineer.
A lot of cruise ships would fold up if they got the 100 footer.

[jimmys]

The QE2 on re-engining was equiped with MAN L58/64 straight 9 cylinder engines. There is still a lot of them around. It was a fine engine.
The Splendor and the QM2 have I think the Wartsila 12V46 and the 16V46 and they are V configuration engines.
The V engines do not seem to hold up as well when burning heavy fuel such as IFO380.
At a slight collapse I attended we were removing sections of the engine by broom and pan from the bilges and the fireman was heard to say "I could put a strong wire through the liners and around the crankshaft and sink this engine as a buoy to tie my fishing boat up at". It was a V engine. He was not far wrong. A very good use for it.
The QE2 was built under different rules and method of build to the modern vessels. We will not see her likes again.

regards
jimmy

[happy daze john in oz]

In reply to our Nev, there are many cruise shisp that do travel across the seas. Here in Oz we get some of the Princess line ships but only for our summer season, they are in northern waters for the rest of the year. Royal Carribean Rhapsody of the Seas does the summer here, does the Alaska run and some around the Japan area. Does not take much to make her roll but she handles rough saes fairly well from experience.