Tugboat Collides With Docked Cruise Ship
A tugboat hauling a barge collided with a docked Royal Caribbean International cruise ship in Key West on Friday, causing an 8-foot-long puncture in the ship’s hull.
No injuries were reported among the 2,040 passengers and 741 crew members after they were jolted during breakfast service on the Enchantment of the Seas as it sat at a privately operated pier in Key West.
“The ship is not in any danger. The passengers are not in any danger. We’re welding a metal plate over the puncture,” Lynn Martenstein, a spokeswoman for Miami-based Royal Caribbean said after the accident. “This was a barge. They just sideswiped us and kept going.”
The 916-foot-long cruise ship later departed as scheduled for Cozumel, Martenstein said.
The Coast Guard was investigating the cause of the incident, said spokesman Ryan Doss.
The gash, 6 feet above the water line, was on the hull’s forward port side.
The tugboat, Huey L. Cheramie, was hauling an 80-foot-long and 100-foot-wide dredging barge, Key West Assistant City Manager John Jones said.
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