1,000 passengers stuck on stranded cruise ship

1,000 passengers stuck on stranded cruise ship

www.cnn.com

The Bahamas-registered Mona Lisa was on its way from Kiel, Germany, to Riga when it ran aground Sunday on a sand bank about 17 kilometers (10 miles) from the Latvian coast.

Coast guard officials said the ship was not damaged and the passengers, mostly Germans, were safe and not at risk.

Three tug boats tried unsuccessfully to pull the ship off the sand bank Sunday, and a fourth tug boat was added as the rescue operation resumed early Monday, officials said.

Rescuers also pumped out the ship's fuel to make it lighter, but were still unable to free the vessel, officials said.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Okay, so what I am concerned about here is what is a sand bank doing in the middle of the ocean? I thought the ocean was deep enough that this sort of scenario would be impossible due to the depth of the water! Maybe I am missing something here, maybe one of you can explain.

www.cnn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

It happens. At least there is not an outbreak of norovirus onboard. That can ruin your whole day.

reply to post by jpm1602


Of course you are right! Norovirus would be more of a problem than this, but what do you think of the ship running up on a sand bar?

I've read of it many times over the years. Incompetent captains. Changes in sea maps due to storms etc. Not that out of the ordinary in my humble opinion.

Well at least there isn't any immediate risk to the passengers nor the crew (i hope) - they can just board one of the 100-man liferafts they probably have a dozen of and safely be on their way to dry land if something goes wrong, and emergency crews are on stand-by if that becomes a nessecity.

As to the OP's actual question, i had a look at the sea levels around there (it wasn't a technical map so i couldn't glean specific information sorry) and there are a few areas that seem to be at a different level to the rest of the inky black depths, but there doesn't appear to be anything of risk to sea-going ships other than one or two small islands in the middle of the bay of Liivi.

Perhaps... no, that's ridiculous - the sea levels aren't supposed to be dropping.

Unless of course this is some sort of early stage of global warming that we never saw coming (which is a tad predictable that we wouldn't be able to predict how the early stages would occur, but n/m that).

It's certainly an oddity - those lanes are heavily frequented by ships of similar size, so i don't see why the Mona lisa ran aground...

Weird.

reply to post by jpm1602


The Charts are updated whenever a ship puts into port, and updates for the area the ship is in can be provided via long-wave radio (i forgot the technical term for this) so it's unlikely that it'll be down to an administrative error.

It may be the fault of the captain, as you said things like that had happened before.

It's not often they mess up on Cruise liners though, due to the nature of the cargo (civilians).

[edit on 5-5-2008 by Anti-Tyrant]

I'm not saying it's an odd occurence. It is. The nature of the ocean and malleable sand bars is legendary. Look at the US sub captain who ran his unit into a previously uncharted sea mountain at 22 knots causing the loss of life to one crew member who could not be airlifted. The fact is, these type of occurences are far from rare and do occur.

reply to post by space cadet


If I am ever to be marooned on a patch of sand out at sea, I can only hope that I'm standing on a cruise ship at the time.

reply to post by SystemiK


Amen! A cruise ship would be nice, expecially when nothing on the ship is affected by the grounding of it, it is just stuck! I bet they all get a free cruise out of this as well!

Originally posted by jpm1602
I'm not saying it's an odd occurence. It is. The nature of the ocean and malleable sand bars is legendary. Look at the US sub captain who ran his unit into a previously uncharted sea mountain at 22 knots causing the loss of life to one crew member who could not be airlifted. The fact is, these type of occurences are far from rare and do occur.

A submarine navigates using sonar and other equipment i'm not currently aware of (probably some form of GPS like the surface dwellers do), so if he was running silently it's not too surprising that he ran into an uncharted elevation in the ocean floor.

I'm not trying to discredit your statement that these occurences do happen, i'm just saying that it's a little odd for it to happen in a place like that where ships come and go regularly as part of the merchant fleet.

The area of the incident is what's odd, not the incident itself.

[edit on 5-5-2008 by Anti-Tyrant]

AT. I'm tired. Been sick for weeks and up all nite, again. I'm going to put your muzzle back on if you don't get off my booty.

reply to post by jpm1602


Mate you're the one who got on my case in the first place, why don't you go put your head in the sand if you're gonna start being like that?

I acknowledged that it may be the fault of the captain, so you could have just looked at it as if i was agreeing with you.

Why did you have to be defensive about it?

Whatever. Have a nice evening mate. See you in the morn, afternoon, whatever it may be.
By the way. 'Never!' got on your case.

[edit on 5/5/2008 by jpm1602]

Originally posted by jpm1602
'Never!' got on your case.

[edit on 5/5/2008 by jpm1602]

Originally posted by jpm1602
I'm not saying it's an odd occurence. It is.
[edit on 5/5/2008 by jpm1602]

No one said that it was anything but.

They are evacuating the "Mona Lisa" now.