Ports Canceled: Winds Affect Cruise Ships

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I didn’t know know high winds could affect a huge ship. A hurricane, sure, but these winds don’t seem that category.

<snip, more than one ship affected>
https://www.cruisehive.com/ports-canceled-as-winds-affect-se…
Ports Canceled as Winds Affect Several Cruise Ships in the Bahamas
A bad weather front with strong winds has affected several cruise ships in the Bahamas, resulting in some canceled port visits.
The winds are sustained at some 30 mph, with gusts up to 46 mph and more. Royal Caribbean meteorologist James Van Fleet reports heavy winds as well at Royal Caribbean International’s Perfect Day at CocoCay, forcing Harmony of the Seas’ day in port to be canceled.

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Tendered ports are the ones that are mostly affected by winds. It is interesting and noisy to board a tender when its borderline on using them.

Two ships can dock at CocoCay which means when there are more tenders are used.

Only once have I been on a flight that landed but couldn’t disembark passengers because of wind gusts. It is unusual to need Dramamine on the runway.

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High winds often cause choppy seas. Getting onto, or off of, tenders can be extremely dangerous - especially for elderly, handicapped (or drunk) passengers when they are bobbing up and down by a few feet next to a comparatively non-moving cruise ship. Over the years, I have been on a couple of tenders which have been badly damages and one which lost a seaman (fatally) overboard because of rough weather.

Jeff

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I didn’t know know high winds could affect a huge ship. A hurricane, sure, but these winds don’t seem that category.

Years ago, I was on a cruise that docked in Roatan, right at the pier, no tenders required, just a gangplank. After a day in port, we all returned to the ship at 5 or 6 PM, whatever it was, with the plan being to cruise over night to our next destination. However the wind was sufficient to pin our ship to the pier until the next morning. I didn’t think the wind was particularly strong but hitting that giant ship broadside catches a lot of energy even in a light breeze.

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At least twice I’ve been on a ship that had to cancel a scheduled port due to wind. It wasn’t that windy, but apparently they can’t safely operate the tenders in even moderately windy conditions.

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On our last Viking Mediterranean cruise in 2018 with 996 passengers, the winds were so high for days at the departure port of Rome that a.) we could not leave until more than 10 hours after original departure time and, b) they had to bring in three or four tugboats to push the ship against the dock in order to keep the winds from repeatedly slamming it into the dock. We missed the next day’s port of Naples/Pompeii and we missed ports in Africa because of bad winds. What was supposed to be a Southern Mediterranean cruise that included Tunisia and Algeria became a northern Mediterranean Italy-Spain cruise.

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