Gone on a cruise, lately?

[HenryC]

Not on your own boat, on  a cruise ship.  I say cruise ship, not ocean liner.  The old liners were designed to be fast and seaworthy in any sea, and to sail on routes year-round that had dreadful weather, like the North Atlantic run.

Where I live in S Florida there are big ports for cruise ships that ply Caribbean waters, and although I have not sailed on any, and I'm certainly no naval architect, I've noticed some troubling trends in cruise ship design.

For one thing, they are getting bigger.  Much bigger, they carry large numbers of passengers, and huge crews, usually of many nationalities.  The officers are generally European, the domestic staff are often South American, and the deck crews come from still other countries, even Asia.  Polyglot, non-union crews governed by sketchy safety regulations from flag-of-convenience countries with little or no maritime experience is, in my opinion, a recipe for disaster. 

The ships are not only getting bigger, they are getting taller, very high off the water, with high freeboards and their superstructures studded with cabins with balconies and big glass doors.  To maximize their passenger capacities for a given size, they are becoming boxier in construction, blunt bowed and sterned, flat bottomed (so they can enter more shallow Caribbean harbors) and stabilized  with movable underwater foils and fins rather than relying  on sea-kindly hulls to handle a real seaway.  Sure, the weather is generally gentler in the tropics, and with weather satellites and modern communications, a fast ship can stay out of a storm's way--or can it?  How is one of these top heavy, flat  bottomed floating hotels going to handle a Category 4 or 5 hurricane if its luck runs out?

Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about here, but I've got a very bad feeling about this.  Any comments?

[Bob23]

Henry:
   I agree and also am not a naval architect. But a little common sense may apply here. If too much of the ship is above the waterline, with too little ballast and poor form stability, well, eventually somethings gotta give.
   I once heard about an old wooden ship that was built, can't remember which country but she was built to be one of the largest with very tall masts. Upon launching, she just fell over...at one point the rig decides to give in to gravity and become the ballast. If I remember the particulars, I'll post it here. My wife may remember...she's a history buff. Quite interesting.
   I have no desire whatsoever to be on a cruise ship unless on one going through the Northwest Passage....sounds very cool, huh.
Bob23...I love my 45% of displacement as ballast.

[jamato323]

Was on Crown Princess last year, left Ft. Lauderdale bound for Western Caribbean in the wake of hurricane Ike (16' seas, only slight roll). I spoke with many of the crew who had been with the line more than a few months and was impressed with their safety training. Captain & senior staff were from UK and long nautical histories. I'm more worried about flues and other communicable microbes when so many people gather in a small space. Although sanitizers were available everywhere.
Going again this January although I miss having sails.

[Mundaysj]

Hi Henry,
I have been on a few cruises... Royal Caribbean in the Mediterranean, Carnival (yuck) in the Caribbean, and just this past summer Royal Caribbean in the Caribbean.  It is a great way to see an area.  You spend the days sight seeing and then dinners and evenings on the ship... and no packing and unpacking.  Like Jamato, I noticed a lot of sanitizers.  Safety wise,  I paid attention to the safety talk and then put my faith in the ship and crew.
Of course I would prefer to charter a sailboat in the Islands, but cannot afford it, and it is rather nice having someone fold your towels into little animals... LOL.
Regards,
Sherie