Cruise Ships

[Mark Prouty]

Mentioning being able to get up close to ships while sailing, I sail by the Queen Mary which is docked next to the massive cruise ships, it is interesting to see the difference of the style of ships. The Queen Mary while a old ship looks graceful and seaworthy while the new big cruise ships look top heavy and I wonder how do they not fall over. Have you seen these things? The new ones now hold up to 3,000 passengers. They arrive in a Caribbean island with a population of less than whats on the boat. Nassau gets up to 6 cruise ships a day. That little city with all those cruise people. Amazing.

This has me curious. Has anyone's peaceful Mac adventures been disrupted by one of these? I can't see taking a cruise with so many people. Am I missing something?

[waternwaves]

Gotta agree with mark on this one
Cant imagine that many people that close....worse than a hotel with a major conference.....

however,

I have thought about a mac Suicide sail......you know.....

Invite 3 or 4 Xgirlfriends for a weekend sail...........

that would be one interesting crowd...

Fatal I am sure..... but would be interesting.

[John D. 26x]

We had and encounter with a cruise ship in the Bahamas. We were sailing our 26x from Marsh Harbor, Abaco to Key Largo. It was our forth day and we were sailing from Sand Harbor on the southwest side of Abaco to Great Harbor, Berry Islands. It was late afternoon and we were getting close to the Berrys when we saw something big on the horizon. It didn't move so we thought it was an island. Soon we found it to be a huge cruise ship anchored off the north end of the Berrys. They were ferrying tons of people to a beach to play. As we sailed by this floating island with our mouths open, we saw hundreds of people looking down at our little floating home. We started seeing lots of flashes from cameras. We must have looked odd with towels and underware hanging from our life lines. A vacation on a cruise ship would be very nice, but the cruise on a 26x was a great adventure and experience I wouldn't trade.

[Chip]

Come on, cruise ships are great. you get undocumented workers from Timbuktu with long criminal records that don't matter on international waters, date rape drugs slipped into your drink by said workers, and mysterious food-born illnesses. Some people actually disappear into thin air on cruise ships never to be seen or heard from again. Watching too much 48 Hours or Dateline, you say? Well, what about being able to contribute personally to the incredibly large scale of pollution created by these seafaring juggernauts? How about slipping in to foreign ports of call for six hours at a whack? Just enough time to see the strip mall of t-shirt shops for the cruise ship passengers and not enough time to do a damn thing else. Then you have the "let's get smashed group," who, if they had any sense, would have stayed at home where they could have gotten smashed for pennies on the dollar and used the leftovers for all manner of extravagance.

[Divecoz]

That is without mentioning all the garbage and chemicals they toss over board . Look on any island anywhere in the Carribean and you'll see how they rid themselves of the unwanted's. Cozumel has major problems with this on our East side as do most the other island s . BTW
These pigs are ruining our sailing waters.

[NiceAft]

You guys are as wrong as wrong can possibly be!
This site has always impressed me with the accuracy and inteligence of the information sent out. And now this?

I have taken five cruises in the last four years. Dec. 2005 will be my sixth. The facts are the following with the line I travel on (Royal Caribbean).

1) They have a policy of nothing goes overboard! Nothing!
2) The people who work there come from more countries than I want to begin to count. Including Canada, United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, Russia, Poland, Etc. Not third world catagory at all.
3) There is plenty of things to do, and plenty of space to do it in. Overcrowding has never been an issue.
4) In all of my travels I have never been given better service, and come in contact with more polite and professional staff anywhere. That includes five diamond hotels in this country and elswhere.
5) A cruise is for people who like to travel to different places without the burdens of packing every time you go to another locale.

You guys were starting to sound like the stodgy, unenlightened sailing elite who knock the Mac.

Lighten up guys!

I love the water. I love my M. I even love this site.


Ray

[waternwaves]

Nice.....

hmmm, how to say this....

While each cruise line has differing practices..There are certain.... "Systems..." on these vessels constructed specifically for the handling, treatement, and disposal of certain classes of wastes, as well as sorting and compaction of solid wastes.

and it is very difficult to get certain cruise lines (those not flying US flagged vessels...ie most) to report total wastes volumes and or weights.

and most of the smaller islands cannot handle the waste generated by a city of 2 to 3 thousand people pulling in every couple of hours.. The carribean has little fresh water...

So, having familiarity with both the marine and municipal aspects I can guarantee you that much waste is discharged outside of teritorial waters.., there simply is not as much waste handling facilities as compared to US ports.

SEcondly, The age of these ships varies from 1 to 40 years old...., and even with refits....wildly varying systems and efficiencys are present..

Thirdly, not all the cruise lines strive for the same eco standards nor enjoy paying US surcharges for discharge and treatment of their wastes.

REst assured...Those big ships are discharging overboard..... typically on a schedule well known within each cruise line..

and having friends that work for one of major world wide cruise lines to check on this......they confirm that their vessels are still legally discharging where necessary

Feel free sometime to try and get waste numbers offically from Holland America on a per boat basis....you wont get a warm reception..

Several alaska waterfront cities are banding together to deal with this issue.... but it is complicated on what a fair shairing of costs are for these wastes...

Most of the time the middle of the night discharges are undetectable on a vessel moving 25 kts...,

[Divecoz]

Most if NOT every cruise line has been fined over the last few years.Some are worse than others .
Most have received numerous fines and some fines have been in the millions of dollars. You need to look at your favorite as its listed as I recall most often. Its all in the papers,almost all the time (Tampa etc.) and the East Side of Cozumel and most other island's are proof of their dumping . For you to say what you did was ridiculous. Living part-time on Cozumel, I can attest that 90% of the workers are from 3rd world countries and working for very little money . This I get from those few aboard who do have good paying jobs working on these boats.

[Bill at BOATS 4 SAIL]

I went snorkeling in the Marquesa's, between Key West and the Tortuga's, in '93. There was so much trash on the bottom, beer bottles, etc. that there was no place where trash was not visible.
I doubt that it has gotten any better since then.

[NiceAft]

If what was said is true, then I stand corrected. I will check into whether or not Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines is one of the culprits.

Ray

[SPC Paul]

A quick google search found this:



Cruise line dumping convictions add up

Jared

[Divecoz]

Royal Cruise Lines 30 charges and 27 million dollars$$$$ in fines . Sounds Eco friendly to me . . . .NOT
Whats truly important is . . .are you EVER going on another Cruise??

[waternwaves]

and none of this addresses the normal waste handling....non oily, non hazardous,could be recyclable, materials that are normally disposed of by the ships. much more of which is discharged outside of territorial waters.. it is chaos. Very few polluters get caught.

[jklightner]

A while back I had to go to Vancouver BC to service the UPS's on a Carnaval cruise ship while they were doing their turn around. They were offloading large containers of cardboard, paper, glass and cans which go to the recyclers. Also they have a full wastewater treatment plant on board to treat all waste water before it goes over. It was a very new ship, I found the steerable electric motor pods and lack of rudder very interesting. Probably an exception, rather than a standard cruise ship. But they do look so top heavy, I wonder how they would be in a big blow.

[waternwaves]

That particular series of ships are interesting. Those pod appendages defintitely catch one's attention on the diagrams on the ship, as far as the engineering systems on board, the Best ships will be those US flagged. Period. The presence of a given system does not guarantee it's use. regurlar and frequent third party inspections, and shutdown authority keeps peopel and equipment operatiing efficiently. An easy way, or used to be easy way to tell, other than looking at the brochures, was to look at the routes...moe help me out here...but it used to be that vessels traveling carrying passengers or cargo between us ports of call with no stops between, were subject to either US flagging requirements or increased CG inspection levels. I am sure some(many) on this board remember what act implemented this..And I am too (forgetful) lazy to look it up this morning....
But I suspect the real reason many of the onboard systems do not always work at top effiencies has to do as much with lax standards, poor communication in multilanguage engneroom and aux system rooms crews. I mean really, these ships are complex and these boats are disabled too frequently. It is hard to maintain vessel as complex as they have become.

NOt to say indiviual lines or vessels have not made great strides in recycling and wastehanding. (especially in visible locations like US ports of call) There will always be room for improvement. Getting back to te carribean references tho....it will take a mindset change and a considerable change in infrastructure and systems.



WE can hope.