Another one down- MV Princess of the Stars

[Shaun Hendricks]

Here we go again. How many passenger carrying ships have gone down in the last two years? This must be some kind of record.

This time, 800+ people may have paid the price for a Captain's decision to sail through a Typhoon. It may have been class 1 at each port but it was class 3 in the transit area. Ferries aren't the most 'solid' of ships to start with and this Captain puts almost 900 people through a Typhoon Class 3 in one.

<rant on> I swear they hand out those Captain's licenses in crackerjack boxes... 1 in every million sold.

Sorry, this stuff is getting me really unhappy with the state of International Maritime Laws and the enforcement thereof.

People must be just any other cargo to businesses like this. </rant off>

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

From what I read, he was cleared to leave port.
Then the typhoon changed course, so the ship was told
to put in at the nearest safe harbor. Then the engines died...

While it may not have been the best decision to leave in the first place,
unfortunately the circumstances have cost a lot of lives.

:(

[james carey]

http://www.sulpiciolines.com/vessels.php?p=str

A big vessel , lucky there weren't more aboard .

The Phillipine Gov has suppended all activity by the Shipping Company , apparently they lost a vessel in a collision in 1987 with the loss of 4,000 lives.
This is their fourth accident .
Sad.

[patmat2350]

Cruise ship detained in NY...
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=6268267

[Shaun Hendricks]

Yup, definitely a good thing there. Maybe we can come up with some kind of 'ship scanner' that is at the entrance to all our ports and scan incoming and outgoing ships for damage and or trouble. Sonar technology is really detailed these days... :D

[Sakura Maru]

The news is full of ferry disasters in the Philippines. It seems like there's one every year.

[Boatfox]

.......<rant on> I swear they hand out those Captain's licenses in crackerjack boxes... 1 in every million sold........

Not around these parts. 720 @ 8 hr days before you can even sit for a small ticket. 2-3 years of school and additional training before you get cut loose on the large boats.
I'm sure the captain didn't want to go out in crummy weather on a suspect vessel....I'm sure the company said, "keep the schedule or loose your job". That's truely the sad thing about this situation. The guy who is gonna get blamed has no choice in the matter(if he wants to pay his bills) :confused:

[Tregurtha1013]

I happen to have a license, trust me they don't come out of a crackerjack box. They are not exactly easy to get.


Licenses do not come from crackerjack, they come from the Coast Guard..... whom has many uses, but when it comes to them issuing licenses i sometimes think of crackerjacks. I just had to go down there to be fingerprinted....AGAIN. Why? Some clown at the new 'National Maritime Center' decided they wanted that. Could anyone in the USCG tell me why i needed to do that again when just last year I was put into this new fingerprint system of theirs..... of course not.

[Shaun Hendricks]

Well, I can only comment that there may be a difference between the USCG and Crackerjack international. Did you ever note the little sailor on their box? :D

All joking aside, if I was placed in the same position as Boatfox speculates, I would hand over my resignation. I could not live with myself knowing I put lives in jeopardy to 'save my job' and I wouldn't want to work for a company that forced me to. Those are just paying customers that expect to get from point A to point B. They are not in a hazardous duty situation, they aren't getting paid to take a risk.

Sometimes, we forget about being human while being a human. I fully accept that we are all flawed and make mistakes, but when a mistake could kill a fellow human, I would hope we'd take a moment to think something over a little bit longer.

I'm probably wrong here though, it still seems to be acceptable to climb in to your car when you are drunk, stoned or impaired by medications. Maybe I'm the one that needs to adjust my human life value meter.

[Boatfox]

But Shaun...you forget the superman complex...The captain doesn't want to be the "wennie" who couldn't take a wee little storm in his big boat.
I'm sure when the weather turned a bit nasty he had second thoughts about his decision at the dock.
...To late now...reduce power and nose into the worst of it....we'll just ride it out.....hey whats with that annoying buzzer and red lights :confused: .....what do you mean the main engine is off line :censored: ...what the heck.....now the gens are off line??? :eek: ...OMG that engineer better be down there getting this tub fired back up or we are all of us in a bad situation......what do you mean the pumps aren't keeping up???? :eek: :eek:

Gotta have a plan if you do the cruise....he trusted to much in the mechanicals and hoped the maintenance had been done.
I'd place money that the fuel got really stirred up with all the rough stuff and the filters clogged.

[Shaun Hendricks]

That is probably true, but Superman was super and I am firmly aware I am a mere mortal. I've made too many mistakes in my life not to know that I can make them easily. As the saying in Iraq now goes: Complacency Kills.

I agree that he probably got complacent but I don't know the man so I can't be sure of it. There are people I'd willingly place my life in their hands but when it comes to strangers who are given that responsibility, I'd expect the system to weed out those that don't value my life at least as well as their own. In this case, the system failed on many fronts no matter 'who' was the factor at fault. However, the captain of a ship is "god" on the ship. That power may go to their heads but at the end of the day, they are responsible for the decisions made.

I feel the captain should never have left port with that many lives on the line and a Cyclone in the neighborhood. Even a 5% chance of it coming across my path is too much of a chance. The Space Shuttle has a 90%+ reliability rating, you won't find me going for a ride in one if I had the chance.