She was bound from Bodo to Stavanger. The line you interpret as heading into Hustad is her drift after propulsion failed.
Would a true âsplitâ system have two service tanks. Maybe both settlers get filled from the same storage tank, but if the fuel was clogging up strainers you would notice problems in your purification system first. Plus you would have 4 tanks of bad fuel to deal with once you realized what happened.
Is there a diesel service system for changing over/emergencies?
Itâs difficult to speculate about a system I donât know anything about. Although iâve never let my own ignorance stop me in the past.
There is no port, but there are many, many rocks not visible on your screenshot.
The ship came on the yellow trail from NE at around 8 knots.
Then she lost speed and went to SE onto your X, variable speed from 1 to 5 knots.
Then she turned N and later NW, on your red trail, variable speed 1 to 7 (the sea was very rough).
Later she proceeded SW, still with variable speed from 1 to 5 knots.
Out of your screenshot she continued W, at 2 to 4 knots for some 8 hours and then came back at around 8 knots to reach the Molde port.
I do not know what happened on board at each change of speed or directionâŠ
Good thread.
In addition to the aforementioned electrical and fuel issues, some news article speculated with air in the sea water cooling system due to excessive vessel motions.
Everybody is talking of electrical power blackout.
The electrical power on board is made from 4 Diesels from MAN + 4 Generators + Transformers + Drives + Pod motors.
So what is the exact equipment who failed first ?
This ship has 4 sisters, so can this faillure occure on others ?
My thoughts exactly.
However, I once had an inconveniently timed main engine shutdown and subsequent blackout because water from a leaky pipe up in the casing entered the day tank through a rust hole, bypassing all manner of water separation stages. These things do happen.
This thing has been at the dock for a while now. Canât the CEO come out for a press conference with his technical people and say fire, flood, fuel, switchboard meltdown, transformer fire, propulsion motor (simultaneous port and starboard) failure?
Look at a map of the area before commenting. You should know that the Norwegian coast is, much like BC and Alaska, full of rocks , some above and some below water.
She drifted to within 100m. from the nearest rock before they managed to get an anchor to hold and eventually one main generator engine restarted, which gave enough power to use one propeller at low power to assist in taking the strain off the anchor and move a bit further away from the rocks. She had 10 shots of chain out in shallow water:
Sometime in the afternoon they managed to restore enough power to move out to sea, but not enough to proceed into port through the rocky strewn and difficult waters in a storm. They also did not manage to connect the tugs that was on scene, so they just gave themselves some searoom and put her head into the wind and seas for the night while helicopter rescue continued.
When the weather improved they connected tow, cancelled evacuation and proceeded towards the port of Molde:
On arrival they were met by a cheering crowd of locals and many of the 460 that had been lifted off. The passengers still on board was happily waving back:
Many of the chose to stay on board to await flights back home, rather than take up the offer of hotel rooms and a hot meal ashore, as the crew had reestablished order and was able to offer normal service on board. The first 120 left already that evening to Oslo, while a charter plane took another 200 to London just after midnight.
As usual the world media tried to find some passengers that would complain about the way things has been handled, but they found that everybody was full of praise for the way the crew had acted, the rescuers and way they had been received by the hundreds of professionals and volunteers that had taken care of them ashore.
That didnât stop them from putting out this headline, which was spread worldwide:
âIt was just chaosâ: Rescued passengers describe ordeal on foundering Norwegian cruise shipâ
Which was based on this statement by one passenger describing the situation as the ship lost power and rolled heavily in beam seas, as seen in the video posted earlier:
âAmerican passenger John Curry told NRK that he was having lunch as the cruise ship started to shake.
âIt was just chaos. The helicopter ride from the ship to shore I would rather not think about. It wasnât nice,â Curry told the broadcasterâ.
I listened to that interview; he and his wife was among the first to be lifted off and had nothing but praise for the way they were treated, onboard and ashore.
I also watched many others interviews by various media and different passenger and heard no complains, on praise and thanks. One Singaporean even had caught on to the facts that Norway is a sparsely populated country, yet a large and complex rescue and reception operation was organised in a matter of hours.
The other thing that inevitably happened was the normal opinions being voiced about why the ship had not sought shelter, rather than continuing her voyage from Tromso towards Stavanger along the inshore route? This is a ship of nearly 50000 GT and would have had no problem with the weather at the time. If the propulsion hadnât failed that is.
Then the other mantra;
- The Captain should be prosecuted for risking the lives of so many people.
- The company only worry about money, not safety.
- The crew are not trained and not capable of handling emergencies
- Etc. etc.
None of this is the case:
There were two Pilots on board who had no qualms about crossing the open and treacherous stretch of the route known as Hustadvika under the circumstances.
Viking Cruises are known for being safety conscious and spending money on the latest and best of equipment, even over and above minimum requirements.
The Viking Sky is Norwegian flagged (NIS) and the crew are required to be trained to Norwegian standard, regardless of their nationality.
In this case,the professionalism and knowledge of the crew was one of the things most praised by the passengers interviewed.
She was supposed to call at Bodo but cancelled because the Captain was afraid the weather forecasted would have hindered departure on time.
PS> Bodo is a trick port for large ships, even with all the thruster power available on Viking Sky.
If she had gone on the rocks and possibly capsized, this could have been a catastrophe, since rescuing that many people from lifeboats, rafts and the water would have been impossible under the prevailing conditions. Praise be to the Captain for managing to stop her drift just short of that and for taking the decision to start evacuating hurt and infirm passengers by helicopter (As well as stopping the evacuation when the situation got under control)
Launching lifeboats in those conditions and in that location, with only a rocky coast and no sheltered bays or harbours to land at,would have been too risky. That would have been last resort, if she had hit rocks.
I watch this operation from not far away and from the beginning to the end and Iâm very pleased by the way it was handled by all parties involved. (No matter what c.captain think)
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What port did you think the Viking Sky was headed? It sure wasnât Hustad. I really think you should have done a bit more research before posting.
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The American Ambassador to Norway have visited the 602 Americans on board. Here is a google translation from an article on smp.no today (behind paywall):
Here an article from smp.no that is not behind a paywall:
The police is on board to take statements and an enquiry has been call to answer those questions. As you know any sensible CEO, or anybody else from the Owners, Managers or the Master and Chief Engineer would be a fool to start making statement to the media at this stage. I would wait for the official findings before speculating on the cause.
PS> Because of the many US citizens involved NTSB has been invited to participate in the investigation and enquiry according to this article in BT.no:
Another casualty of the storm on the west coast of Norway this Saturday:
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The ship has electrically-driven shaft lines, but of course from electrical network topology point of view thereâs no difference from podded propulsion units. With my (limited) understanding of typical single-line electrical diagrams of diesel-electric ships, Iâd say the fault must have been at main high-voltage switchboard or âaboveâ; anything below that would (should) have affected only one propulsion line (or alternatively 50% on both lines).
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Lloydâs Register of Shipping is the classification society for Viking Sky and their local office here in Aalesund is already involved in finding the reason for the blackout and the future plans for the vessel. Here is another article from smp.no today in google translation:
The term âcrashâ in this context likely refers to computers, in this case itâd be engine control systems I assume.
If thatâs the case itâs not the first time a problem crossed over from one engine room to another in supposedly segregated systems.
Iâm leaning towards an automation glitch. There isnât a whole heck of a lot that can take out a modern diesel electric system so thoroughly.
It is a glitz from google translate (as usual).
The original Norwegian text says: âViking Sky fikk total motorhavariâ = âV.Sky got total engine failureâ
So nothing to say computer crash, just bad translation.
Fuel is the other one. Do any of the existing redundancy schemes require fuel redundancy beyond segregated service tanks?
Not just that, it also says âall the systems and engines could fail at onceâ, not just the engines, engines and systems.
Also the fact they are checking the logs which would be system logs.