Ship Fire Heats Up Safety Concerns on All Lines

The dramatic footage of the July 20 fire aboard Carnival’s Ecstasy could cause some potential cruisers to think twice before booking a seagoing vacation, despite the fact that there were no serious injuries and the ship was towed safely back into port to discharge its passengers.

In initial television coverage, the passengers appeared calm, perhaps because the fire followed closely on the heels of the lifeboat drill, required by the U.S. Coast Guard to be conducted during the first 24 hours at sea for all ships sailing from U.S. ports.

Most South Florida cruise ships set sail in the late afternoon to the Bahamas and Caribbean from Miami and Fort Lauderdale, and most hold the requisite passenger lifeboat drill on deck as the ship sails through the channels and past the breakwater into the open sea.

Some Ecstasy passengers interviewed on camera fretted that because the watertight doors were shut to isolate the fire, they could not get back to their cabins to get their life jackets. Had they attended the lifeboat drill and listened intently to the information disseminated, they would have known that the ship carries an extra supply of life jackets in storage containers on boat deck as well as others in the lifeboats.

Bear in mind that evacuation procedures may vary from ship to ship.

During lifeboat drills, passengers are usually warned about carelessness with smoking materials. A burning cigarette tossed overboard from an upper deck can easily be drawn into open deck areas below.

Interestingly, the newest sister ship for the Ecstasy, Carnival’s Paradise, due to enter service in December, is a totally nonsmoking ship, with officers, passengers and crew forbidden to light up anywhere on board, indoors or out. Renaissance Cruises’ new R1, which debuted in Europe in mid-July, also is totally nonsmoking.

Another perennial safety concern of passengers is ship sanitation. You can keep abreast of ship sanitation scores by asking your travel agent for the most recent “green sheet” report on the ship you’re considering. A grade of 86 or better is passing. The cruise lines themselves pay for the sanitation inspections, which usually occur twice a year unless the ship fails, in which case an additional inspection is made at the first opportunity.

Remember that a passing score does not guarantee against gastrointestinal outbreaks aboard, just as a failing score does not mean passengers will automatically get sick. Princess Cruises’ Regal Princess, for example, carried a score of 92--well above passing--on the green sheet of June 12 from an inspection made earlier in the year. But a gastrointestinal virus hit passengers and crew during three June sailings in Alaska, after which Princess canceled the June 28 sailing so that the ship could be sanitized. (To get information about sanitation scores, write to Vessel Sanitation Program, National Center for Environmental Health, 1015 N. American Way, Room 107, Miami, FL 33132.)

Don’t book inaugural cruises or any sailing scheduled immediately after a major renovation because that’s when mechanical systems such as plumbing or air conditioning are more likely to fail.

The U.S. Coast Guard, conducts domestic port security programs, makes initial inspections of new ships, keeps quarterly examination schedules of ships sailing from U.S. and selected foreign ports and examines emergency systems, training and performance of officers and crew during safety drills.

It was the U.S. Coast Guard that halted the June 1 sailing of Premier Cruises’ Oceanic, also known as the Big Red Boat, until the cruise line could prove that it had instituted new safety codes that went into effect in late 1997. The ship was cleared for its June 5 itinerary.

The Coast Guard also recommended in June that the new Commodore Cruise vessel Enchanted Capri, a Ukrainian-owned vessel built in 1976, not sail until certain crew problems, including language difficulties, were corrected. Commodore canceled the first three cruises until its non-English-speaking crew members learned enough English to adequately conduct lifeboat drills.

Shipboard security has been an ongoing concern since the terrorist hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985. Coast Guard-approved safety plans for ships that sail from U.S. ports were required to be in effect before September 1996.

Aboard Princess Cruises’ new Grand Princess, passengers are photographed when boarding and issued a coded ID card with detailed information imprinted on a magnetic strip. Passengers are required to present the card when disembarking and reembarking. Besides verifying the passenger’s identity, the card lets officers determine who is aboard and who has gone ashore. The system is already installed on five other ships and will be in effect on all Princess ships by the end of this year.

Slater and Basch travel as guests of the cruise lines. Cruise Views appears the first and third week of every month.