Cruse ship accident

A cruise ship, "Crown Princess" enroute back to New York after a 9 day
cruise
was off the east coast of FL yesterday when its rudder suddenly went "hard
over"
and caused the ship to list suddenly very far over. Passengers and loose
furniture
and fixtures were sent flying. The ship put in to Cape Canaveral to offload
about
100 seriously injured passengers (2 critically) for medical treatment. The
ship
is being inspected by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Coast
Guard before it will be allowed to contine on to New York. Meanwhile the
un-injured (or merely bruised) passengers are being bussed to Orlando to be
flown back north. About half of the some 3000 passengers have already gone.
This is a brand new hugh ship of the Princess Cruise Line, some 19 decks
high,
and was on only its second cruise since joining the Princess fleet. One
passenger
was heard to say: "I thought we were going to experience the Posiden
adventure
for real". Passengers were thrown as much as 50' feet as the ship heeled
over
VERY sharpley and far. Princess is refunding the cost of the cruise to the
passengers, I understand.

Chakolate...

I had read that they were only going to refund about a third of the fare,
since the cruise was two-thirds over. Which is very short-sighted of
them: if they want to avoid as many lawsuits as possible, they should not
only refund the whole cruise but offer a free cruise as well.

BillB (FL)

**Dalin**...

In an interview this morning with one of the passengers she said the
ship had been listing for two days before this happened. I don't
understand, if that is true, why they didn't transfer passengers to
some other ship.

verity...

That's amazing, It'll be interesting to see what the inspection reveals.