Let’s say you are well to do and have rented the nicest suite on the ship when you know what happens. Whether your toilet works or not, you aren’t going to hang around for 5 days as the ship limps to (presumably) the nearest US port that can accommodate it.
What if anything stops you from hiring a Mexican charter boat from coming along side so you can leave? I realize you would need a valid passport to enter Mexico, but you needed that before they let you on the ship. Is there any way they could stop you from leaving?
Could they legally deny you use of the gang ramp to get off the ship?
Okay, but would that stand up in a maritime court of law? If you’re leaving was a danger to the other passengers and crew, for example in stormy seas, I could see the Captain saying no, but I believe they can airlift people off a cruise ship in a medical emergency, and they have tenders that they could lower you into for a ship-to-ship transfer.
I could see them charging you a fee for accommodating your desire to leave… but I have a hard time believing they can keep you from getting off if there is no danger to the rest of those aboard.
At some point it would become illegal restraint wouldn’t it?
If the Captain says that in his judgment the transfer could not be done safely, what legal principle can be invoked to declare this illegal?
A court might ask the Captain what conditions made the proposed operation unsafe. He could cite such things as the delay it would cause, that the crew necessary to help had duties elsewhere, etc.
It’s an extremely strong principle dating back many hundreds of years that the Captain’s judgment is final.
I have arranged hundreds of medical evacuations off cruise ships in the Caribbean. None have ever been by helicopter. The majority of cruise ships do not have helipads. Even if the ship has a helipad it may be well out of range for a helicopter unless it is a military copter and in-air refueling is available.
Our office has only seriously discussed helicopter evacuation in a tiny handful of emergencies on cargo or military ships. It has been done far less than its been discussed.
Ever ridden in a bosun’s chair? Ever ridden in one 40 or more feet in the air? I have. If there is any sort of sea at all, it can be hazardous. You can get slammed around against the side of the vessel, you can get slammed between two vessels.
I would say that unless you can demonstrate in some manner that you are safe to use a bosuns chair, the Captain won’t let you have a go at one. If you need medical transport off, one normally gets strapped into a helicopter stretcher. [having been used as a practice evac patient in one for cave extraction, sedation would probably be a reasonable request for most people.] If you have the money for a helicpoter medevac, knock yourself out. mrAru says land based helicopter medevac runs $7500 - $8000 [depends on the supplies used] but didn’t remember any amounts for seaborn medevac costs. I would imagine they are way more expensive than the land based sort.
Jump? You’d break something unless you got really close to the water. You’d also end up landing really close to the side of the ship and might hit your head on the way back up. Oh, I hope you can swim really well as the ship was in a strong current that carried it 90 miles. Looking at the pictures of the ship I do not see a heli-pad.
Best thing to do would be to charter a boat to come to you, go into one of the lifeboats, and release. Then, have them tow you in to the chartered ship, board, and go home. But, you’d cause such a panic that everyone would want to do the same thing w/o arranging for pickup and then they’d be even worse off.
If I was stuck on that floating hell and I could have a boat there waiting to pick me up, I would find a way to get off. I’ll bed sheets together to make a rope. If I can’t do that I’ll get to the lowest point I can leave the ship from and jump. I will get off that ship somehow. I be tempted to do it even if there was no boat waiting for me.
It isn’t something I’d have to worry about though. I’ve lived my whole life without going on a cruise, and I can live the rest of it just fine without one.
You are right you ccould get off the ship but it would not involve the crew helping you. The lowest point that you culd get to would be the maindeck, and on a cruise ship that could be 4 or more decks above the water level.
I have always said that I would never leave a ship at sea unless there was someone there to pick me up right now. I would not get into the life boats until the water was coming over the main deck. Stuck on a dead ship is a hole lot better than being stuck in a boat or the water for possably days.
I believe that about 900 passengers on the ship did not have their passports with them. It’s not needed if the ship departs and returns to the US. And the people without passports is one reason that they didn’t attempt to dock in Mexico.
The helicopter option actually is pretty safe as these things go - it’s just really expensive.
Cruise ships aren’t designed for sea-based crew/passenger changes.
Otherwise, no, that’s about it for safe transfers. You can try to hijack a life boat, I suppose, but you wouldn’t be doing that with anybody’s blessing. Our big boats in the gulf primarily use helicopters for crew changes. And few vessels are set up to pick up people from a life boat safely. They’re emergency vessels for a reason.
Occasionally we also use chase boats. But our big boats are equipped with gear to lift the smaller vessels from the water directly into the boat via a crane-like mechanism, which cruise ships won’t have. Even so, the operation of that equipment is not without problems and HSE is a major issue on the boats with injuries and accidents a certainty over time - still, it’s safer than working on the oil platforms.
I was on a NCL cruise last year and they did exactly that. First they winched up the Wife, and then took the husband (heart attack) in a basket.
We where on our way back to NOLA when this happened. The captain turned west towards Key West for the closest Coast Guard staition. Trying to shorten the distance for the chopper. What looked like a C-130 orbited us during the evac. Or maybe it was a tanker, don’t know enough about them to recognize them. I have video of this. There are a number of them on YouTube.
We ended up being about 10 hours late getting into port. The claim was that the sprint towards Key West caused engine problems.
I was on a Caribbean cruise in the summer and a helicopter came to take a passenger who had a medical issue. That was a HUGE ship though. It is kind of a big deal though. It isn’t as if the helicopter can just swoop in and pick up people all by itself. The ship crew have to coordinate with the helicopter. The ship needed to be as stationary as possible. The helipad and surrounding decks needed to be evacuated. It wasn’t trivial.
I also recall that they announced the helicopter was coming hours before it happened. The ship needed to get closer to Puerto Rico before the transit could happen.
Yeah. In our case the ship continued moving when they winched them up. I believe helicopters aren’t as stable in a hover. Maybe I’ll see if I can upload the video I have.
If you were rich enough to afford this scenario, I’m betting you aren’t staying in one of the small interior cabins on the lower levels. You’re going to have a great big suite, on an upper level, with a balcony and a view. And the crew is going to be bending over backwards to take care of you. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there were a small number of things like chemical toilets, small generators, ice reserves, etc that were stocked especially for the high rollers. Yeah, I know, this ship/cruise is a “beginners” cruise, and wouldn’t have very many high rollers on it, but a small generator, a few fans, a chem toilet and some ice in their sodas keeps them happy, you know who will be getting the limited supplies.