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If you have ever been on a cruise ship you have seen the numerous lines the crew uses to hold the ship in place at the pier. These are incredibly big and strong. They are so heavy that when a ship arrives at the dock crew first tosses a lead line to the shore staff who drag that towards them and then a number of them hoist the big lines onto the bollards attached to the pier.
I have always been intrigued by just how many lines a ship attaches to the pier as it seems like overkill to have sometimes as many as 8 or more lines holding a ship in place. But there seems to be a reason for this and why so many anchor points are used.
During our weekend news recap I posted a link to a story about the Norwegian ship EPIC snapping it’s mooring lines during a strong wind event in Italy. Those initial reports were in fact wrong something more remarkable happened. Rather than the line snapping the actual mooring bollards were ripped away from the pier and this dramatic, and terrifying, video shows the result of the big, heavy, metal bollards snapping back and impacting the EPIC (first one, then the next – turn up volume for max impact):
Insane right? Can you imagine being on the pier and waiting to board and seeing this? Yikes!
We already learned that during this event a passenger went into the water but was saved with minimal injuries but now we know more. First up regarding the ship Crew Center reports that:
“The visible damage was located on the aft port side of the ship. The affected area is part of the vessel’s external skirt and does not compromise the watertight hull, suggesting that the ship’s structural integrity remains intact.“
In addition to this the passengers who were not onboard had to wait for weather conditions to improve to re-board the ship as it pulled out to sea for a while after the event. Again from Crew Center they say:
“While the ship sailed offshore to stabilize, hundreds of passengers who had disembarked earlier in the day found themselves stranded at the port. Many endured extreme heat, lack of shelter, and minimal supplies while waiting for instructions that never came.”
For those who are not frequent floaters, you need to be so much more aware of your surroundings when both on a ship and at shore. Dangers you do not normally see are all around you and this is a lesson, when the weather is sketchy, to be even more alert to what is happening! – René
Advertiser Disclosure: Eye of the Flyer, a division of Chatterbox Entertainment, Inc., is part of an affiliate sales network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites, such as CreditCards.com. Some or all of the card offers that appear on the website are from advertisers. Compensation may impact how and where card products appear on the site. This site does not include all card companies or all available card offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. Some of the links on this page are affiliate or referral links. We may receive a commission or referral bonus for purchases or successful applications made during shopping sessions or signups initiated from clicking those links.
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