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Alaska Cruise Ship has grounded 4 times

by unofficialsquaw.com | May 14, 2007 at 07:03 am

3635 views | 15 Recommendations | 7 comments

The cruise ship Empress of the North that hit a rock off Juneau Alaska
this morning had an eerilly similar incident in the Columbia River last
year. As the Winter 2006/2007 Issue of the US Coast Guard's magazine
Proceedings then reported:

A river cruise ship goes hard aground on a rocky ledge outside the main navigation channel of theColumbia River, near Portland, Ore. The vessel floods and begins to list to port. Onboard are 260 passengers and crew, and more than 35,000 gallons of diesel fuel.

For the complete story visit the Maritime Experts at: gCaptain.com

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UPDATE: This is actually the 4th grounding of the vessel "Empress of the Sea".

By reviewing the USCG incident reports along with some google powered research we were able to find at least three groundings in addition to today's incident.

March 24th, 2006: Multnomah County sheriff's Lt. Mike Schults's eyewitness reoprt stated "Wind and choppy water may have sent the vessel off course." The result was a firm grounding on a sand bar at the edge of the Columbia River near Portland, OR. Reported by the AP

Nov 27th 2003: During the evening on a voyage up the Columbia River the vessel developed steering problems and ran aground 80 miles NW of Portland. Two crew and a passenger suffered minor injuries.

Oct. 24, 2003, while transiting a lock on the Snake River the vessel grounded with no reported injuries.

2007 has been a particularly bad year for the ship after 23 passengers took ill and the ship subsequently failed its CDC health inspection. That incident is still under investigation.

For the official US Coast reports and inspection data visit: gCaptain.com's Maritime Blog

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From the Editors of NowPublic:

We are delighted to have Capt. John Konrad assisting us on this story. Capt. Konrad is Chief Mate aboard a 865' ship in the Gulf of Mexico, and is the CEO and founder of gCaptain.com, a resource for Professional Mariners Worldwide.

It was amazing when we first saw John's story show up - here is an account of the wild mix of stuff that allowed him to report what was happening abour his ship.

All 248 passengers have been rescued now and are en route to Juneau on a variety of ships . One of our members is reporting that amateur radio operators believe the passengers are being taken to Auke Bay, a few miles down the channel from Juneau.

NowPublic members who have any information to add - please contact us!

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Actual News Geezer

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 07:26 on May 14th, 2007

unofficialsquaw.com, extremely interesting! Do you have any contacts with anybody in Juneau? we'd like to follow this very closely. And thanks so much for posting this so quickly.

Actual News Geezer

at 06:30 on May 14th, 2007

unofficialsquaw.com, thanks for getting this story out so quickly. It will now show up on the home page for four hours. If new developments justify it, I'll renew this flag for another cycle.

bettympage

at 10:51 on May 14th, 2007

It's great to see true maritime accuracy on the coverage of this story. And I'd like to add my two cents...

My name is Christine Klimkowski, and I sail as Third Mate onboard a 853' cargo ship in the Gulf of Alaska. I am familiar with SE Alaska, since I worked onboard another small cruise ship in the area. I saw the Empress of the North on her maiden voyage in Petersberg three years ago. Although, SE Alaska is largely made up of very deep fjords, there are some shoals and rock areas. And John Konrad brings up a very good point in noting that this is not the first time this ship has run aground. But I'd like to mention that in the past 10 years a number of cruise ship have run aground in SE Alaksa with little or no press coverage. And as this area becomes more frequetly vistied by cruise ships, we must become more mindful of the toll it will have on the environment and the safety of tourists.

Kaitlin

flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 10:59 on May 14th, 2007

unofficialsquaw.com, thanks for this! Great stuff.

Barry ORegan

at 15:06 on May 14th, 2007

I hope media don't discover that BC Ferries is giving Captaining and Ferry Piloting Lessons to Americans.

unofficialsquaw.com

at 23:34 on May 14th, 2007

No problem! I am beginning to hear reports of the exceptional
response of the ship's officers and crew.

Nothing solid yet but it's beginning to sound more like a
design flaw and less of a human error. The old steamers have limited
maneuverability and less "get-up-and-go" than a modern ship making it
more difficult to avoid a know problem. This makes me ask... is it worth it to
reproduce older and thus more dangerous vehicles for strictly sentimental
reasons?

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related to a story they are submitting please feel free to contact me here.