Shown above, AIS provider VT Explorer plots the cruise ship Louis Majesty’s path as it encountered rough sea’s on March 3rd, 2010 (click image for high resolution). VT Explorer tells us:
An abnormally high waves (6-8 m) hit the cruise ship “Louis Majesty” (former “Norwegian Majesty”) carrying 2000 people in the Mediterranean sea on March 3rd, 2010. The waves have smashed glass windshields killed two and wounded fourteen passengers according to the official news reports. The killed passengers were identified as a German and an Italian man.
“Louis Majesty” was sailing from Barcelona to Genoa.According to our archive records the accident has happened on March 3rd, 14:20 UTC around the following location.
Latitude: 41°55′ N Longitude: 3°47′ E
As you can see from video of the incident below, weather was the likely cause of the high waves. Buoy data off the French coast reported winds reaching 45 mph.
Thanks to forum member “kp12″ for pointing us to this in the forum.
Links
Related Posts:
Tags: · ais, Cruise Ship, severe_weather
.
Nautical charts and pubs change nearly as fast as the tide sending each sailing second mate back to kintergarden’s cut & paste lessons each time a new notice to mariners arrives with the ship’s mail. So it may seem ironic that the one chart which hasn’t changed much in over 200 years, was created by am man shipwrecked at age fifteen due to a faulty chart… The Beaufort Scale. Wikipedia tells us:
Beaufort developed the first versions of his Wind Force Scale and Weather Notation coding, which he was to use in his journals for the remainder of his life. From the circle representing a weather station, a stave (as in musical notation) extends, with one or more half or whole barbs. For example, a stave with 3 ½ barbs represents Beaufort seven on the scale, decoded as 32–38 mph, or a “Fresh Gale”. Beaufort didn’t really invent something new here; rather, he eventually succeeded in getting others to adopt it as a standard when there was no existing standard.
While the information hasn’t changed much (nor has chart most of us are familiar with, shown in the picture above) the way in which the information is displayed can be depicted in a variety of ways. Below is just a sampling, be sure to leave a link to your favorite rendition of the scale in the comments below…. and not, the Beaufort-esque chart for determining the scale of a bar fight, doesn’t count.
[Continue Reading →]
Related Posts:
Tags: · severe_weather, storms, Weather, wind
For the full list of gCaptain’s incident photos, CLICK HERE
For most, the notion of a bad time on a luxurious vacation aboard a cruise ship would be eating some bad shellfish at a local port. For the unlucky passengers aboard the British cruise ship Balmoral, their 10 days of basking in the lap of luxury went awry when the ship encountered 50 ft. seas and 60 mph gale force nine winds. The Balmoral encountered the rough seas when attempting to transit the Bay of Biscay during a storm. According to reports, two passengers had to be taken to a hospital in Spain with broken bones.
Pictures Of The Storm – Bay Of Biscay
[Continue Reading →]
Related Posts:
Tags: · Cruise Ship, incident photos, rogue-waves, severe_weather, storm, storms, Weather
Breaking weather news from Russia. Bloomberg tells us;
An oil spill from a tanker that sank in a storm in waters between Russia and Ukraine threatens an “environmental catastrophe,” said Vladimir Slivyak, head of the Moscow-based Ecodefense group.
The Volgoneft-139 leaked 1,300 tons of fuel oil into the Kerch Strait linking the Black Sea and Sea of Azov, a Russian Transport Ministry spokeswoman, who declined to be identified, said in Moscow. Four other ships sank in yesterday’s storm that produced six-meter (20-foot) waves, state broadcaster Russia Today reported. Two sailors are dead and 23 are missing, it said.
“The effect will be very serious for the whole marine ecosystem, including fish, because of the high toxicity of oil products,” Slivyak said by telephone in Moscow yesterday. It will take several months to remove the oil on the surface, while the oil that sank will be “very hard” to clear, he added. Continue Reading…
1,300 tons converts to approximately 560,000 gallons of fuel oil or 10 times that which was spilt last week by the Cosco Busan in San Francisco Bay. No specifics yet but maybe Robin Storm can enlighten us.
CNN has some impressive video as well: LINK
Related Posts:
Tags: · Environment, Lifesaving Incidents, Marine Incidents, marpol, MARPOL Incidents, news_from_russia, oil_spill, russia, severe_weather, sinking, weather_news
Photo of the Norwegian Dream after encoutering a sucession of 25+ foot waves in 2005 colliding with the ‘Ever Decent’ while transiting the the English Channel in 1999.
The report: [Continue Reading →]
Related Posts:
Tags: · cruise_ship, ever_decent, incident photos, Marine Incidents, marine_weather, norwegian_dream, ntsb_report, Photo, rogue_waves, severe_weather, ship_damage, Weather
gCaptain On Twitter
gCaptain On Facebook
gCaptain On LinkedIn