As it turns out, the boat the passengers saw was in fact in distress; two of the three persons on bo

Apparently three of the passengers on board the Star Princess were bird-watching with powerful spotting scopes, and saw a small fishing boat not making way in the water, about two miles away. They saw people moving in the boat, and saw somebody waving two different colors of cloths. They informed one of the ship s crew of this. And then the Star Princess did, well, nothing.
As it turns out, the boat the passengers saw was in fact in distress; two of the three persons on board died of dehydration. This is tragic. However, it is hardly reasonable to imagine that the crew of the Star Princess willfully ignored their duties cheap hotels in las ramblas spain to rescue a vessel in distress.
First off, it is unclear that the passengers who observed cheap hotels in las ramblas spain the vessel in distress actually communicated this to the ship s crew, as opposed to the ship s concierge staff, who are more likely to be accessible to the passengers but less likely to be trained to recognize a vessel which is actually in distress.
Second, if the person they informed was part of the actual crew, and that person properly cheap hotels in las ramblas spain informed the bridge that a passenger had seen a fishing boat that they believed to be in distress, the mate and AB on watch would have looked at the fishing boat through binoculars. Assuming a best-case scenario in which the fishing boat was at the closest point of approach when the passengers observed it, and also assuming a best-case scenario in which the time between the passengers first observing the fishing vessel and the time of the bridge observing the same fishing vessel was six minutes, at a 24 knot cruising speed the ship would have been about four miles away when the bridge first observed the fishing boat. At this point, with the ship departing them at 24 knots, it is unlikely that the fishermen would have continued waving their underwear or whatever it was. But in the very unlikely event that they were still waving them, and in the even more unlikely event that this would have been visible from four miles away through cheap hotels in las ramblas spain 7 50 binoculars, there is no reason to assume that the bridge watchstanders would recognize this as a distress signal. Because it isn t one.
If the mate and AB had somehow happened to train their binoculars on this fishing boat at the moment the passengers did, they might have seen the rag waving, and they might or might not have thought that it could be an intended distress signal. Having only the word of the passengers, however, they really had no reason to suspect that the vessel was actually in distress. What they saw was an open fishing boat adrift cheap hotels in las ramblas spain about 100 miles offshore. Yes, that s stupid; no, that s not uncommon. It s what fishing boats do. The fishing boat did not light off their flares when the saw the ship coming, they did not attempt to hail them on their handheld VHF radios, they had not activated their EPIRB, all of which were required cheap hotels in las ramblas spain for a fishing vessel that far offshore regardless cheap hotels in las ramblas spain of the country cheap hotels in las ramblas spain it hailed from. The ship s crew did not see a vessel in distress. They saw a fishing vessel fishing.
The passengers who saw the boat, not understanding what distress signals were, did believe it to be in distress. In this case, it actually happened to be. However, cheap hotels in las ramblas spain passengers report other vessels to be in distress all the freaking time. Every sailboat cheap hotels in las ramblas spain which is heeled over by the wind is presumed to be sinking, every barbecue cheap hotels in las ramblas spain is presumed to be a fire, every cruiser drying their laundry is assumed to be a distress signal. My boat carries 300 passengers at a time, we get this all summer long. The Star Princess carries 3,000. Poor bastards.
These are the same passengers who every single day ask, as they board, which part of the boat is the front. Here s a picture of my boat. Imagine you re walking cheap hotels in las ramblas spain down the gangway toward this boat. Do you think you could figure cheap hotels in las ramblas spain out, just by looking at it, which part was the front? I ll bet you could. I ll also bet that if you somehow couldn t, once you got inside and saw all of the seats facing the same direction, you d figure out that the direction all the seats were facing was likely cheap hotels in las ramblas spain the front of the boat.
I probably get asked this two or three times each boarding. We carry 300 passengers, give or take. Which means that on every single voyage about 1% of my passengers are willing to admit to me that they are incapable of figuring out which end the boat is the front.
I have never worked on cruise ships like the Star Princess. But many of my friends and coworkers have, and nothing I have heard from them has led me to believe cheap hotels in las ramblas spain that their passengers are categorically more intelligent than my own. Which is not to imply that all ship and boat passengers are stupid; only that some significant percentage of them have no understanding of things maritime whatsoever. Which is fine, that s why they re passengers. But because of this I am always going to treat reports from passengers with a healthy cheap hotels in las ramblas spain dose of skepticism. And no, as the master or mate of a cruise ship, I m not going to turn the vessel around to investigate every time a passenger freaks out because they see a sailboat on a close-reach.
The fisherman s attorney is alleging that the ship did not render aid because they would somehow lose money if they arrived at their next port of call an hour late. This is ridiculous. Ships are late all the time, due to weather cheap hotels in las ramblas spain or passenger emergencies or whatever, and commercial vessels render aid to other vessels all the freaking time. This is a cruise ship we re talking about, not a pizza delivery truck. If it happens to be 30 minutes late, nobody gets a refund. If it s 3 hours late, the passengers might get a free margarita out of the deal, but that s about it. No mariner is going to let another mariner perish at sea to avoid handing out a few drink vouchers.
=========================================================== (CNN) An 18-year-old Panamanian fisherman who survived 28 days adrift at sea is suing Princess Cruise Lines, arguing that one of its cruise ships should have stopped cheap hotels in las ramblas spain and saved him. A negligence lawsuit filed in Florida last week says the behavior of officers or crew members of the Star Princess was outrageous cheap hotels in las ramblas spain and, under the circumstances, so beyond all bounds of decency as to be regarded as shocking, atrocious and utterly cheap hotels in las ramblas spain intolerable cheap hotels in las ramblas spain in a civilized community. cheap hotels in las ramblas spain Three passengers who were birdwatching on the ship alerted cheap hotels in las ramblas spain a crew member when they spotted Adrian Vasquez and his companions signaling for help from their fishing boat, the suit says. Even though crew members had clear knowledge that people were stranded cheap hotels in las ramblas spain in an open boat hundreds of miles from shore in the Pacific Ocean and desperately calling for their help, the suit says, they consciously ignored the emergency situation and did not deviate from their cruise. The fishing boat, Fifty Cents, had been adrift for 15 days when it crossed paths with the Star Princess on March 10, according to the lawsuit. At the time, all three fishermen aboard were alive. Later that day, according to the lawsuit, 16-year-old Fernando Osorio cheap hotels in las ramblas spain died, having lost all hope as the Star Princess steamed away. Five days later, another fisherman cheap hotels in las ramblas spain on the broken-down boat, Oropeces Betancourt, 24, died at sea. Two days after spotting the struggling fishermen, the three cruise ship passengers cheap hotels in las ramblas spain followed up with a ship officer, asking him what happened to the fishing boat after their report, according to the lawsuit. cheap hotels in las ramblas spain This officer did not have an answer for them and walked away without explanation, the lawsuit says. Princess Cruises spokeswoman Karen Candy did not comment on this specific allegation Monday, adding that the company was still investigating the incident. Robert Dickman, a lawyer for Vasquez, speculated that one reason the Star Princess cheap hotels in las ramblas spain did not stop was because the cruise ship s crew didn t want to get off schedule for their next stop in Puntarenas, Costa Rica and, thus, lose money. The ship did arrive in Puntarenas on March 11, noted Candy, but she strongly denied that the crew decided not to help the fishermen for financial reasons. This is absolutely cheap hotels in las ramblas spain false, she told CNN by e-mail. Princess Cruises released a statement Monday saying it was deeply saddened cheap hotels in las ramblas spain that two Panamanian men perished at sea and very sorry for the tragic loss of life. Because of what we suspect was a case of unfortunate miscommunication, regretfully the captain of the Star Princess was never notified of the passengers concern. cheap hotels in las ramblas spain Had he been advised, he would have had the opportunity to respond, as he has done numerous times throughout his career, the statement said. This is an upsetting and emotional issue for us all, as no employee onboard a Princess ship would purposefully ignore someone in distress. It is our ethical and maritime responsibility to provide assistance to any vessel in need, and it is not an uncommon occurrence for our ships to be involved in a rescue at sea. In fact, we have done so more than 30 times over the last decade. Jeff Gilligan, one of the cruise ship passengers who said he saw the stranded fisherman and alerted the cruise ship s crew, told CNN last month that he took a picture of the fishing boat from about two miles away. It s just a horrible thing. I m sick about it, he said. He saw the tiny vessel through high-powered scopes, he said. It appeared not to be moving, he said, but the men onboard were. We were looking through powerful spotting scopes before cheap hotels in las ramblas spain I took those photographs, and we the three of us couldn t come up with any reasonable explanation why somebody would have been flagging with two different colors of cloth, clothing cheap hotels in las ramblas spain or whatever it was, to our ship from perhaps two miles away on a little boat that wasn t moving, over 100 miles from the coast, he said. At the time, he and his fellow cheap hotels in las ramblas spain passengers thought the cruise ship crew members would do something. We fully expected the ship to turn around or to send a tender cheap hotels in las ramblas spain boat out to investigate our suspicions, he said. Vasquez s lawsuit seeks compensation for physical, emotional and psychological injuries that it alleges he s