SHIPS MAIL
LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FOR THE CRUISE INDUSTRY
Letter of the month
Through Ships Monthly I have previously raised concerns that cruise ships are too large to be safe, and I disagree with the rationale that, in an emergency, ‘ships should be their own lifeboat’. Last month the Norwegian Safety Investigation Authority (NSIA) published a report into the Viking Sky major incident. The report is freely available online.
A Star Class cruise ship built in 2017 by Fincantieri, Viking Sky was registered in Bergen, Norway and operated by Viking Ocean Cruises. On 23 March 2019, with 1,300 people on board, she suffered total loss of propulsion and steering during a storm in the Hustadvika area of Norway. It took 39 minutes to restore power, by which time the ship was less than a ship’s length from running aground. It took afurther 25 minutes after power was restored for the first helicopter to arrive on scene.