Norwegian Cruise Ship Loses Navigation After Wave Smashes Windows

norwegian cruise line rogue wave

While the waters of the North Sea can be turbulent, marine experts said it's generally safe for the hundreds of thousands of ships that pass through every year. Punishing winds shattered windows on the bridge of the vessel, causing water to flood in. If the captain thought so, he would have asked to be evacuated which he hasn’t,” the rescue centre spokesperson said. The 266 passengers and 131 crew members were safe, according to the Danish Joint Rescue Coordination Centre.

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Norwegian cruise ship loses navigation ability in North Sea during storm - Reuters UK

Norwegian cruise ship loses navigation ability in North Sea during storm.

Posted: Thu, 21 Dec 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

The ship, operated by HX, a cruise company owned by Norway's Hurtigruten Group, was about 120 miles from Denmark's west coast when the wave struck, Reuters reported. The wave's force shattered some of the ship's windows and caused it to tilt "pretty violently," passenger Elizabeth Lawrence told Business Insider. The Norwegian cruise ship MS Maud temporarily lost power on Thursday after encountering the rogue wave. Its operator, Hurtigruten Expedition, said in a statement that the 266 guests and 131 crew were uninjured and that the vessel, initially headed for the English port of Tilbury, would be diverted to Bremerhaven, Germany, for disembarkation. The rogue wave shattered windows on the ship's bridge, which caused water to enter the vessel and resulted in a power outage, Reuters reported. A Norwegian cruise ship lost the ability to navigate after a rogue wave crashed into it Thursday, the cruise company HX said.

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The main engine is functioning but the navigation systems and radars are not,” a spokesperson for the centre, which is responsible for coordinating search and rescue operations, said. “Following ongoing safety checks and technical assessments, given the weather conditions, we decided to amend the planned sailing route. Across the fleet, there are thorough operational protocols in place and we always prioritize the safety of those onboard,” HX said. Two civilian support vessels are aiding the ship in its journey to port, Danish rescue authorities said.

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Dorothy Hallam, a passenger on board, wrote on social media, "We've been sat on the floor in our muster stations for hours wearing our safety suits and life jackets and there's no sign of us being allowed up any time soon. We were thrown about a lot." HX said after following ongoing safety checks and technical assessments, the company amended the ship's planned route to sail to Bremerhaven, Germany, for disembarkation. The cruise ship Maud, en route to England, lost its ability to navigate after its electricity went out, the Danish Joint Rescue Coordination Centre said, according to Reuters.

The MS Maud, a Norwegian cruise ship, lost its ability to navigate after a rogue wave knocked out its power on Thursday. The largest rogue wave ever recorded was the Draupner wave, an 84-foot-tall (25.6 meters) wave that was observed near Norway in 1995. However, the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded was the Ucluelet wave, a 58-foot-tall (17.7 m) wave that was detected by an ocean buoy off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia in November 2020.

Another clip shared on X showed the view of the terrifying swells from the glamorous windows of an on-board suit, which tilted precariously toward the water between each wave. They also added that their team is arranging the travel for guests onboard to return home. Live Science is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Ian Roberts, another passenger, wrote on Facebook about the unexpected change in holiday plans. National railway operator Deutsche Bahn said Friday there were cancellations on routes from Hamburg and Hannover to Frankfurt and Munich, while long-distance services from Hamburg northward to Kiel and Flensburg weren't running, among other disruptions. The storm also brought down trees and prompting warnings of flooding on the North Sea coast.

A Norwegian cruise ship with more than 250 passengers on board lost power on Thursday, Dec. 21, after the vessel encountered a rogue wave during a storm, the cruise company HX said. The Norwegian cruise ship MS Maud suffered a power outage after a rogue wave shattered windows on the bridge while it sailed in the North Sea, causing the vessel to lose its ability to navigate, Danish authorities and the ship’s owner said on Thursday. It is currently unclear if the wave that hit the Viking Polaris qualifies as an official rogue wave because there is no accurate data on the wave height or the surrounding sea state. A storm was raging when the wave hit, CNN reported, which could have provided the necessary conditions for a rogue wave to form. A Norwegian cruise ship lost power when a “rogue wave” smashed windows on the bridge as it sailed in the North Sea with 266 passengers aboard Thursday.

The ship was currently being steered manually from the engine room but cannot navigate. Esvagt support vessels had arrived to help the ship navigate until the ship could be towed to port. Reuters reported that the ship was being towed to Bremerhafen in Germany after the power outage. A spokesperson for the Danish Joint Rescue Coordination Centre told the news agency that a ship from civil rescue firm Esvagt had managed to connect a tow line to the MS Maud. The MS Maud lost power after the wave hit as the ship was sailing toward Tilbury, England, from Florø, Norway, HX, a unit of Norway’s Hurtigruten Group, said in a statement. "At this time, the ship has confirmed that no serious passenger or crew injuries have been sustained as a result of the incident and the condition of the ship remains stable," the statement said.

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norwegian cruise line rogue wave

The ship was in the North Sea at the time, in an area hit by a storm late Thursday with hurricane-force gusts forecast to continue Friday, the Danish Meteorological Institute said according to Reuters. The MS Maud, which is run by the cruise company HX, a unit of Norway’s Hurtigruten Group, left Floroe in Norway on Thursday and was scheduled to arrive in Tilbury in Great Britain on Friday. The ship’s main engine is still functioning, so the vessel can be steered from the engine room. Experience a once-in-a-lifetime moment you will never forget while witnessing the icy-blue glaciers and unique wildlife of Alaska. Walk through Greece's enchanting, sun-bleached streets, or find your own paradise in a secret beach in The Caribbean.

Hurtigruten told the outlet in a statement that no serious injuries resulted from the rogue wave. "This wave hit and came over and literally broke through windows and just washed into these rooms," Tom Trusdale, a passenger aboard the Viking Polaris when the incident happened, told ABC News. "The condition of the ship remains stable and the crew are able to sail under their own power," a spokesperson for HX said. One passenger posted a video on Facebook showing the view from her room's window Thursday with the cruise ship bobbing up and down and creaking in the throes of high waves. Lawrence added that while in their muster stations, passengers were given "survival suits" — or suits that "dramatically extend survival times" with insulation, per the Coast Guard.

German authorities warned of a storm surge of up to three meters (nearly 10 feet) or more above mean high tide on parts of the North Sea coast on Friday. "Our team are working to arrange onward travel back home for guests onboard," the statement added. "I only had to go down a nearby flight of stairs to get to my muster station in the main restaurant, but the ship was tilting pretty violently. When it was all the way over to one side, you could just see a wall of water, no sky or anything," she told BI. Lawrence, who had picked the cruise to see the Northern Lights, said the day started out with fairly big waves but that the captain had let passengers know to expect that. But as the day went on, the waves got bigger until they were large enough to spray her window on the sixth deck, she said.

Freshwater RoguesRogue waves can form in large bodies of freshwater as well as the ocean. One of the most famous shipwrecks of the 20th century, the Edmund Fitzgerald, was probably caused by at least one rogue wave on Lake Superior, part of the Great Lakes of North America. In 2019, a study published in the journal Scientific Reports predicted that rogue waves could become less frequent but more extreme in the future due to the effects of human-caused climate change.

The area was hit by a storm late on Thursday with hurricane-force gusts blowing from the north-west that were forecast to continue on Friday, the Danish Meteorological Institute said. A towage vessel from the civil rescue company Esvagt was scheduled to arrive at the ship around 2230 GMT. "An Esvagt ship is towing it slowly towards Bremerhafen in Germany at around 8-9 knots," the spokesperson told Reuters. “It really hit home when they started handing out orange survival suits to everyone,” Lawrence explained.

The Ucluelet wave is regarded as the most extreme rogue wave because it was around three times higher than surrounding waves, while the Draupner wave was only around twice as tall compared with the surrounding sea state. The MS Maud sustained a temporary loss of power while sailing to Tilbury, England, from Florø, Norway, HX said in a statement to NBC News. No serious injuries were reported among the 266 passengers and 131 crew members, according to HX. While sailing roughly 200km (120 miles) off Denmark’s west coast and roughly 330km off Britain’s east coast, strong winds blasted windows on the bridge of the vessel, allowing water to enter and resulting in a power failure on the bridge, the centre said. According to multiple reports, rescue company Esvagt’s support vessels helped the ship navigate until it could be pulled to port. “Earlier this afternoon, December 21, MS Maud reported a temporary loss of power after encountering a rogue wave,” Hurtigruten, Norwegian coastal ferry service and cruise line, said in an emailed statement, per The Guardian.

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