Cruise ship sinks Venezuelan patrol boat, well done

Hah, I'd love to see that.......

Cruise ships in both polar regions are a very controversal subject. These regions are very sensitive enviromental areas and not very friendly to human life. Means, without proper built ships and very well trained crews, one of those cruises can turn out to be very dangerous and disastrous for the enviroment. No area for mass tourism.

During my time as commercial skipper in our family business, I have commanded cargo vessels around Cape Hoorn and into several difficult harbours in Patagonia. I have even sailed as a young Navy Cadet on the German Navy square rigger Gorch Fock around Cape Horn. But I have to admit, the weather was always great and it was an easy job.

But I have never seen the solid Ice of the Anctartica. The roaring forties were never my cup of tee.

My much more favored area are the northern waters. The first ship my father "forced" me to take command of, was one of our coasters on tramp shipping, means trade shipping without fixed routing. You never knew where You ended up. That brought me up to northern Norway, including the Lofoten Islands and even into Murmansk, to Iseland, Greenland and once even up to Jan Mayen.

Navigating these areas needs a high state of concentration for the crew in charge on the bridge, especially during night. Even in summer, we did encounter icebergs and ramed small floating pieses of ice. That noise scares the hell out of you on the bridge and even more for those poor oil monkeys (engineers ) in the engine room.

But the 14 days cruise on this special explorer cruise ship with my wife was a total different story. Expensive yes. We paid more than 25.000,- Deutschmark for that outside cabin (no suite) at that time for those 14 days. But a special built ship, only 175 passengers, very professional crew and a real adventure. You never felt unsafe or endangered, nor was there any bad feeling about harming the enviroment. Watching the wildlife, landfall on remote islands with Ribs. We saw Icebears walking by us with a distance of less than 100 meters. But a crew member with a gun was always with us as a safety guard. But the icebear was obviously not hungry and the safety guard did not have to scare him away with gun shots in the air. Today, the same cruise would be more than that in Euros.

Honestly, exlorer type cruising in those areas are very expensive and mostly done by wealthy and older people. On our cruise, my wife and I on our mid fifties, were among the youngest passengers on board. If You care for party and hully gully, this is the wrong type of cruise.

A friend of mine booked his older parents on a six month world cruise on one of those Hapag-Lloyd luxury Cruise ships. He paid more than half a million Euros for the suite on the MS Europa. But the flight to and from the ship was included .

And with my present displacement yacht (not ice classed), I prefer the warmer waters of the western Med. But I am afraid, this season is dead due to Corona. We keep all crew under full payment, only part of the service crew is on vacation and locked at home down under. I hope, they all stay safe and will return, when the borders reopen again.

And Mapism, enjoy Sardenia. I love that island. In my first life as a young military jet pilot, we had many exercises in Sardenia. Our base was always the Airbase of Decimomannu, north of Calgary. I dropped my first bombs on Capo di Frasca and I have to admit, one or the other was long and ended up in the Golfo di Oristano . Much fun, great food, nice beaches and very pretty girls. I still miss my military life.

I remember a taxi driver in Calgary, perfectly German speaking. He turned out to be a germanistic professor of the local university, not being payed regulary by the Italian Government and driving a taxi for survival. Belly Italia !!!

Just my 2 (Euro) Cents

Mapism, the only reason for the bulbous bow of Resolute / Hanseatic is reducing the drag / fuel consumption on cruises. Just because of the wanted cruising area, the bulbous bow was made much stronger but not as a ram bow like on those old roman war galleys.

On some of our cargo vessels, the bulbous bow was even designed to be sacrificial. It played the crumple zone. The rear end of the bulb was connected to the strong forward crash bulkead. Besides its hydronamical purpose, the bulb had give itself up during a crash in order to keep the crash bulkhead intact and most of all watertight.

Warships normally do not have bulbous bows. They have active Sonar bulbs, which are actually counterproductive as far as drag is concerned. The purpose of the bulbous bow is the extension of the waterline and the deflection of water flow around the bow in order to reduce drag. Correctly designed, the bulb will reduce drag and fuel consumption by 10 to 15 %.

Back to the original question, why do war ships most of the time loose on a crash with a merchant ship. It is their design caused by their purpose.

Warships usually have a much lower beam to length ratio. As there is no such thing like a free lunch, if You want greater performance in one area, You loose capabilities in other areas. The narrow warship hull gives more speed and more maneuverabilty but one of those slim warships will therefore already roll on the dump green of a lawn.

My oldest son was a consript on one of our German Navy frigates. He always said, he only had to kinds of health states on board. Either sea sick or home sick .

By looking and analyzing the Spanish built little corvette, I would say, she is a very conventional design with large frame distance and minimal stringers and a rather thin skin, in order to safe weight. Combined with her relatively low draft as a littoral combat ship and her fast displacement steel hull shape, she is not very stable. Her low freeboard and her smooth aluminum superstructure might lower her radar cross section but she is definately not all aspect stealthy.

Her armament is very conventional, only cannons and two half inch machine guns. Also the Italian built Otto Melara automatic 76 mm gun is very effective, it is not a real threat to bigger vessels. But those patrol type coastal vessels are not build for sea battles and anti submarine warfare. They fight smugglers, fishing pirates and landing crafts.

And with a permanent crew of 34, she is what the Navy calls a single watch ship. Not only fuel and supply is limiting her station time, she also has limited human resources on board. This class of ship is a kind of low cost war ship for the export to smaller countries and definately not of highest quality.

I do not believe this class of ships are made with single watertight compartement. They must have at least three watertight sections bettween the crash bulhead and the stern. Damage stability is always a problem on narrow hulls, as there no longitudinal watertight bulkheads. But with closed watertight bulkhead doors and a completely destroyed forward crash bulkead and flooding of the forward compartement, this ship should not have capsized sunk.

These amateurs have thought, the cruise ship is an easy meal and the commander did not declare his ship to battle staion prior the attack. Stupidness combined with arrogance has let to the loss of a fully operational war ship.

For those who did not see that horrible imperial dutch(?) Cruise ship attack the poor Venezuelan Navy patrol boat . I am sure the navy was helping the cruise ship off a sand bar....https://www.express.co.uk/news/worl...nks-cruise-news-latest-resolute-ship-naiguata