Cruise ship accident

I've only been on cruise ships a few times. So let me ask what may be seem a dumb question. I've notived that modern cruise ships are very maneuverable (given their size) and often dock themselves, but tugs have always (in my experience) been standing by. Was this ship under it's own control or was it being put on the dock by tugs?

Yes, I assumed that a pilot would have been on board, which would probably put it mostly on him (as either way he'd be directing the action), but I was just curious that, since it was during bad weather, if the tugs were on it. Either way though, sad situation especially with the injuries and loss of life.

On many cruise ships the ships master often also has Pilotage in his regular ports of call and does the dockings.

Hi,

I remember in 1984 the Nordic Prince coming into Charlotte Amalie in St Thomas during Hurricane Klaus, she went sideways through the anchorage damaging and sinking yachts as it went. Don't know if anyone ever got any compensation from that and was aware that ship stopped calling in STT afterwards.

I got some pics from a guy who was on site when this cruise ship hit the dock, two of them have also been published in the Sun in the UK.

You can clearly see Crew Bunks in some of the shots.

and a few more

Interesting to see it openned up like that. Quite an unsubstantial plating on that vessel.

Waves smashed into Cruise ship in the Med, killing two:

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Wo...d_Injuring_Six_Passengers_Off_Coast_Of_France

It is probably around 25mm thick. What do you want, an armor belt?

Given the energy applied to such a small area I would say the shell plating did a pretty good job.

Hi,

Would you please provide the public with these regs ASAP?

Sure doesn't look inch thick to me, but that may be a perceived scaling issue, looks about 16mm to me. I don't have any real issue with it, I'm sure the structural engineering behind it is sound, I was just noting the difference to the old liners which were considerably thicker.

Yet I'm pretty sure the new ones are safer ... When was the last time a big ship sank on launch?