The attached pic is the ship in our harbour this morning....
'Cruise from hell' terrifies passengers
WebPosted Sep 28 2004 05:41 PM ADT
HALIFAX — Passengers from a cruise ship that docked in Halifax Tuesday told a harrowing tale of furniture flying and people breaking bones when the ship lost power near the edges of hurricane Karl.
The Atlantic Ocean was rough, with swells reaching 10 to 15 metres, when all four engines aboard ms Rotterdam failed at about 6 p.m. Friday, three passengers told the CBC.
The loss of the Holland America Line ship's electrical systems and stabilizers sent the 237-metre-long vessel tilting sharply from side to side on its North Atlantic trip from Ireland to eastern Canada.
"It was more or less the cruise from hell," said passenger Herman Veder of Boca Raton, Fla. "Furniture was flying all over the place. Pianos were not bolted down. In the gym, which is an extensive gym, all the weights came loose and started rolling around."
In one onboard restaurant that had 1,000 plates on hand, 800 came loose and crashed to the floor, he said. "In the cabins, refrigerators came loose, TV sets were flying through the rooms."
Holland America Line website - ms Rotterdam
Passengers grew more terrified as a message came over the intercom that stretcher teams were needed, Veder said. An unknown number of people suffered broken collarbones, gashes and bruises.
Rita D'alessio was one of five passengers who received medical treatment in Halifax Tuesday.
"I was in my room," she recalled. "I was in my bed, and then all of a sudden the waves were swaying the ship, and I got up and in two minutes I was thrown against a chair and I hit my face and I fell on the floor."
"I was thrown the full length of my cabin," said another passenger, Christine Powell. "I hit the steel door with the top of my head. I smashed my glasses into my face. My leg is totally black from top to bottom."
None of the injuries was life-threatening, the cruise line said. A Holland America spokesperson said the ship is structurally sound, and promised an investigation into what caused the engines to quit.
"Lots of people thought that it would be their end. This would be it," said Veder. "If you tilt a little bit more, you won't be able to come up any more and that's the end of a ship."
"Some of us were concerned that the boat was going to tip over because it was rocking and swaying so hard that things were flying across the cabins," said Rachel Youngman, a California resident making the trip with her husband Richard.
"And the captain — it took him about an hour to come on and say, 'This is very uncomfortable but the ship is in no danger.' And at that point I think we all relaxed a little bit."
Up until then, she said, many passengers had grabbed a lifejacket and were ready to abandon ship.
"They did call for the crew to man the lifeboats ... just in case, because no one knew what was going to happen. So Richard and I were ready to go if we had to."
The 62,000-ton Rotterdam, built in 1997, can accommodate 1,316 passengers with 593 crew members on board.
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