Abandon Ship! Very Slowly!Why does it take hours to evacuate a sinking vessel?
Posted Monday, April 9, 2007, at 6:56 PM ETDownload the MP3 audio version of this story here, or sign up for The Explainer's free daily podcast on iTunes.
A cruise ship, the Sea Diamond, ran into a reef off the coast of Santorini, Greece, on April 5, tearing a hole in the hull that sank the vessel 15 hours later. The nearly 1,600 passengers and crew didn't get off the ship for three hours. Why does an emergency evacuation take hours?
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StumbleUponSlower evacuations are safer. According to the International Maritime Organization's Safety of Life at Sea guidelines, the crew of a ship must be able to lower all the passengers in lifeboats within half an hour, once everyone onboard has been "mustered," or gathered from throughout the ship. But captains don't always evacuate that quickly, because a hasty exit can be dangerous. Panicky passengers can injure themselves as they run, shove one another, and collide in the chaos of flight. Evacuees aren't their normal selves; one study (click for PDF) found that 70 percent of passengers are bewildered with impaired reasoning after serious maritime incidents, 15 percent exhibit irrational behaviors like uncontrollable weeping, and only 15 percent remain calm and alert.
These dangers might be acceptable in a critical emergency; for example, if a ship were quickly taking on water and about to sink. But in less dire situations, the ship's master will tend to use all the available time to ensure a safe evacuation. Even with the Sea Diamond's three-hour evacuation, though, some passengers suffered broken arms. The captain might also hold up the evacuation while he or she gathers more information about what's happening. A captain won't abandon a vessel unless it's sure to sink, since even a damaged ship offers more protection than a life raft.
Evacuation from the Sea Diamond might have been slowed because it was listing, or tilting to one side. Safety researchers say the tilt likely slowed the evacuation by 10 percent, by forcing passengers to walk more slowly and hold handrails. (More significant listing can be disastrous.)
When does evacuation begin? When the captain sounds the mustering signal—seven short horn blasts or bell rings followed by a long one. Passengers gather at the mustering stations assigned to them during evacuation drills held at the start of the cruise. Each passenger grabs a life jacket from his or her cabin or at the mustering station. There's supposed to be plenty to go around—usually two for every person—but this wasn't the case on the Sea Diamond, where some passengers fought over life jackets. Teams of crew members sweep cabins one by one for stray passengers, marking each cabin that has been checked. The crew also prepares lifeboats, using cranelike structures called davits to lower the boats to the decks where passengers have assembled.
Everyone waits at the mustering stations until the captain gives the final signal (by radio this time) to abandon ship. From there, it can take as little as five minutes to pack a lifeboat with 50 to 200 passengers and up to a minute to lower the vessel to the water—a descent of five stories or more. (It's unusual for passengers to disembark by slide or rope ladder, as happened on the Sea Diamond.) The crew gets off the ship last; sometimes they must resort to chutes and slides to reach life rafts that are already on the water.
Got a question about today's news? Ask the Explainer.
Explainer thanks Andrew Carran of BMT Fleet Technology and Capt. Ted Thompson of the Cruise Line International Association.
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Remarks from the Fray:
There are 3 types of ship any deck officer or especially maritime engineer will avoid if he can get a contract for at least 70% of the money on a container or, even better a semi vessel: oil tankers, gas tankers and livestock… ups, sorry, cruise ships. Naturally, through professional selection you do not necessarily get the best of the best there.
Those who dream about all-American crews on all-American vessels – you can stop smoking now… Most ships hail from nice low-tax or tax-free places like Panama and crews are all contract employees from all over the world – trust me – a Polish chief engineer for $6000 a month or a Russian chief engineer for $4000 a month is exactly as good as an American chief engineer for $15000 a month – often better because they have way more experience maintaining older vessels, and things break often if the ship is older than 5 yrs. Typical life-span of a vessel is up to 25yrs – sorry guys – with prices of $20 to $45 mil a piece it takes time to get a return on your investment :)
There are good reasons sea wolves do not like cruise ships:
Floating hotels rely mostly on advance warning systems and speed to get out of trouble – they are not built to withstand the fury of the ocean the same way the trading vessels are. To accommodate 700-1600 civilians you have to do away with a lot of safety. Cargo will not complain that it is stuck in the center of the hold with no view or whatever other funny place it has to be stuck in order for designer to equip the ship with whatever it needs to be equipped for floating through a hurricane to the closest shipyard for repairs :)
Cargo cannot abandon ship. Sorry guys but a single container of NVIDIA 8800 GTX graphics cards form China is money-wise worth more than an insurance policy for a remote possibility of a passenger not abandoning a cruise liner in time. Cruise liners are built to get people out in time rather than float at all cost because there isn't $250 million of unmovable cargo on board. Needless to say marine officers feel much better to be on a ship where they are number one people to be taken care of rather than number 1328 after all the passengers.
--PaxTerminus
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