A Cruise Ship Captain’s Firsthand Account of a Man Overboard — Our Dinner with the NCL Jade Captain!

While I am still working on my review of my Atlantic crossing on the Norwegian Escape, I am also slowly assembling my amazing 22-day NCL Jade cruise that included two crossings of the Panama Canal. For a very long time, Norwegian has given elite Latitudes Rewards members who are top elites (currently for those Sapphire or higher) the opportunity to have “Dinner with Officers” if you go to Cruise Next and request this on embarkation day of your cruise.

If you are selected, you will be randomly placed in the main dining room with an officer on the ship. You may be seated at the Captain’s table, but you may end up with the staff captain or the engineer and so on.

Over the years, my wife and I have done this a number of times and had interesting conversations with the fine folks who hail from all over the globe and all of them speak fluent English. Hence, communication is not a problem, and the inside bits they share about crew life and the inner workings of their jobs are always interesting.

Being part Swedish, I have had the somewhat frequent privilege of dining privately with Swedish officers, that is, either the captain or the staff captain. They always perk up when you can speak fluent Swedish with them, and when we dine this way, it is often in a specialty restaurant, and sometimes, they pick up the tab and put the evening on their ship account.

Fun (and embarrassing) fact: One time, I blew a shot at this when I said hello to the captain in the suite breakfast area/restaurant. He was seated with a very nice youngish woman and I was dumb enough to ask if this was his daughter who had joined him onboard. It was not. He then said in stern Swedish:

Det här är min fru (This is my wife)!

Oooppssseee…

As you can guess, I did not get an invite to dine with him and his wife on this cruise, and I made a point to avoid running into him for the rest of the sailing. Now, I am smart enough to ask who this is with you when meeting them for the first time.

On this cruise, I reached out to the Swedish captain (they have several meet-and-greet opportunities for elites and guests in suites) and mentioned it would be great to dine with him if he had time. Later I received an invite to dinner with a few other guests in the main dining room, as you see above.

A number of us asked about being a captain and various interesting bits. I asked how often he has been on a ship when someone goes overboard. His answer was fascinating. First, he shared that, from his experience, most cases when someone goes overboard are not accidents; that is, they jump overboard on their own. I could not believe this, but he was adamant that accidental overboards were extremely rare.

He then related that one time, he had a jumper on a cruise. They were in the Mediterranean and near shore with calm seas. He said he was in his cabin and got a call from the bridge that there was someone hanging over the side of the ship (cruise ships have cameras everywhere). Then all of a sudden the officer on the phone said – “and there he goes” and the captain actually saw the man pass by his window from his cabin!

What happened next was amazing and a lesson in how far cruise lines will go to save someone who does go overboard. The captain ordered over the phone for the “Marine Light and Smoke Signal” (pictured above) to be deployed and the officer said it had already been dropped from the bridge.

The captain then made his way to the bridge and the ship had already started to turn back towards the location where the man had entered the water. They retrieved the person after launching a lifeboat with crew onboard to, ahem, fish him out of the water. He jumped from a long way up and his entire side was black and blue from smacking into the water so hard.

Oftentimes, when someone goes overboard, they are never found for obvious reasons, that is, waves and location and so on. In this case, the waters were warm and calm, and they were reasonably close to the shore, and the life ring just happened to drop right next to the man to be able to grab ahold.

All of us at the table were enthralled with the story. The captain related the “rest of the story” and again why he said most overboard incidents are intentional. He told us the man and his wife had a big fight and the man said, just before jumping, I would rather jump overboard and swim to shore rather than spend another moment on the ship with you. She said go for it – and he did!

Lastly, we were told that the shore can look much closer than it seems from a ship, and fools think they are strong swimmers and can make it, but if they survive the jump, it is a very long swim often in ice-cold waters.

Overall, it was one of the most interesting dinners with an officer I have had, and I just so geek out over everything to do with cruising (just like aviation) and can’t wait for my next chance to learn more about what happens when you live and work onboard! – René