Cruise Ship Passengers Recount Panic

(CBS)  With relief written on their faces, the adventure tourists walked ashore from the adventure they hadn't signed up for, onto a remote island off the tip of the Antarctic peninsula, reports CBS News correspondent Richard Roth.

And while their safe rescue from their stricken cruise ship the Explorer is a story of good luck and skilled work by the ship's crew in a crisis, when the ship hit ice in the dead of night, Canadian vacationer John Cartwright says there was certainly some anxiety.

"We all got a little nervous when the ship began to list sharply and the lifeboats still hadn't been lowered," he said. "We feel very relieved now. We're all sort of unwinding and happy to be up here warm and dry."

The explorer was known as the little red ship, and less than 20 hours after its passengers and crew evacuated, it was lost to the seas.

It was designed for cruising icy waters, but double-layered steel covered just the explorer's bottom, not the side of the hull where an iceberg apparently ripped a hole.

Water rushed in, compartments flooded, the engine failed, and the ship began its fatal list.

In frigid air, passengers and crew waited in open lifeboats more than four hours, bobbing as the seas turned rough, and two nearby ships steamed to their rescue.

"It was cold, it was wet it was scary," said a British passenger, who added, "now we're looking forward to going home."

But that was something of an adventure of its own as bad weather at the remote Antarctic base where the travelers waited delayed military flights for hours, before an airlift began ferrying them to the southern tip of South America for connections with more routine transport home.

[smiley676]

Since these sort of vacations to Antartica are very expensive (tens of thousands of dollars), it''''s likely a lot of them were conservatives as we poor ol'''' tree huggers don''''t have the kind of jack needed for these sort of exotic vacations.

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Posted by Rafterman1

You personally may not have that kind of money, but many tree huggers do. And many conservatives are dirt poor. Don''t be so judgmental.

[smiley676]

Sevenveils
Any news about a candidate CBS likes.

[ontheleft]

can the ron paul posters please limit their posts to 5000 per day? 10,000 per day is a bit much. thanks.

[sevenveils]

The Cruise Ship owners, G.A.P. Adventures, have down played down this great escape and CBS has eaten the PR up.

MS Explorer was doubled hulled for ice. The ship did hit an iceberg, about 1/3 of an iceberg is above the ocean''s surface. The hole in the hull was significantly larger than fist size. There was panic and chaos during the escape from the sinking ship. The survivors (everyone on the ship was!)were exposed to subzero temperatures for several hours. By fate another cruise ship was near by and able to take on the lifeboats.

The real story was not published here on CBS, only glossed over PR. So what other news gets this treatment?

[whatithink-2009]

Easier to get help to the Antarctic than New Orleans.

[ragingmounta]

I agree with "chimike11."

However, I ALSO THINK that the "Almighty ACCOUNTANT, ship''s DESIGNER(S), ARCHITECT(S), and OWNER(S) be HUNG from the highest yard arm aboard the "HMS VICTORY" in LONDON!! Let her guns fire again in the unlamented task of being the instrument of execution!!!

LET Lloyds Of London, et al, SEE that poor vessel construction and maintenance will NOT be condoned, or tolerated.

LET NOT the thicket of maritime laws be invoked to shield these miscreants from proper justice.

The lessons of "Titanic" SHOULD have been learned by 1914. ARCTIC waters are NOT as "friendly" as tropical waters. Thus, a much stronger, and better-provided, and better-constructed hull SHOULD have been forthcoming.

Although NO loss of life occurred, STILL the POLLUTING of the sub-arctic waters, and UNNECESSARY LOSS of a motor ship DESERVE severe punishment.

I say,LET the quilty parties be REQUIRED TO PAY from their OWN POCKETS for a REPLACEMENT craft and GIVEN to the line that sustained the loss. Additionally, these malefactors MUST PAY for ALL ENVIRONMENTAL remediation out of their OWN POCKETS.

As the saying goes: "Those that do NOT read, a/o UNDERSTAND HISTORY; are BOUND TO REPEAT IT!!!" Apparently, so!!!

Ragingmountain
[e-mail]
11-25-07

[speakinup]

This is so typical of CBS news. Let''s make the story''s headline sell something that just isn''t true.

Yellow journalism at its best.

Just look at what they sell in headlines, and what is in the article. Then realize that many folks never read past the first paragraph. It is a way of slanting the news any ''ole way they want.

Here it is quite innocuous, but just let them loose with a political story, and they influence voters.

Such as the piece they did on the former Whitehouse press secretary. Libelous.

[rray52]

What in this story justifies a headline of %u201CCruise Ship Passengers Recount Panic%u201D

The closest I found were "We all got a little nervous when the ship began to list sharply and the lifeboats still hadn''t been lowered," he said. "We feel very relieved now. We''re all sort of unwinding and happy to be up here warm and dry."

And "It was cold, it was wet it was scary," said a British passenger, who added, "now we''re looking forward to going home."

That hardly rises to the level of panic

[chimike11]

Hi, it seems the shipping world has forgotten the lessons of the most famous ice-caused shipwreck of all time, the RMS Titanic. After the disastor, the White Star Line at great expense rebuilt the sister ship Olympic and modified the construction of the sister ship Britannic to include a virtual double hull. That went a long way to reassuring the public as to the relative safety of the ships in ice-frequented waters. Apparently, we have lost that bit of common sense in our regulation of these ships.