A Luxury Cruise Ship, Stuck Off Greenland's Coast for 3 Days, Is Pulled Free (nytimes.com) 69
A luxury cruise ship that had been stuck for three days after running aground off the coast of Greenland was pulled free on Thursday morning, the authorities said. From a report: The ship, the Ocean Explorer, had been carrying 206 passenger and crew members and was headed toward Alpefjord, in a remote corner of Greenland. The ship's destination was the Northeast Greenland National Park, the world's northernmost national park, which is home to icebergs, glaciers and high mountains. The Joint Arctic Command, which is part of Denmark's defense forces, and SunStone Maritime Group, the coordinators of the rescue operation, said in statements on Thursday that the ship had been pulled free by a vessel named Tarajoq.
There were no reported injuries on board the ship, and there was no threat to the environment. The ship's operator, Aurora Expeditions, a cruise company based in Australia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The rescue came after an unsuccessful attempt on Wednesday, in which a fishing research vessel owned by the government of Greenland tried and failed to pull free the Ocean Explorer at high tide. Bad weather also slowed the government's rescue operations, officials said. Before the ship was freed, the Joint Arctic Command had said that "the crew and passengers are in a difficult situation, but after the circumstances, the atmosphere on the ship is good and everyone on board is fine."
There were no reported injuries on board the ship, and there was no threat to the environment. The ship's operator, Aurora Expeditions, a cruise company based in Australia, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The rescue came after an unsuccessful attempt on Wednesday, in which a fishing research vessel owned by the government of Greenland tried and failed to pull free the Ocean Explorer at high tide. Bad weather also slowed the government's rescue operations, officials said. Before the ship was freed, the Joint Arctic Command had said that "the crew and passengers are in a difficult situation, but after the circumstances, the atmosphere on the ship is good and everyone on board is fine."
McAllister: "Arr, I'm in a lotta trouble now. Hey, (Score:2)
McAllister: "Arr, I'm in a lotta trouble now. Hey, I'll give ya a hundred bucks if you'll take the blame."
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"Yar, I hate the sea and everything in it"
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When I heard that they were pulled free by a fishing trawler, I had an image from Jaws, "You're gonna need a bigger boat!" [youtube.com]
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Is "OceanExplorer" ship owned by "OceanGate"? That was my first thought when I read TFS...
I guess not since OceanGate's OceanExplorer is now gone as I understand it but maybe they re-pivoted with a new OceanExplorer with a comparable amount of success, who knows for sure?
a cruise company based in Australia (Score:1)
Aussie to Greenland, thats a long cruise.
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Aussie to Greenland, thats a long cruise.
Yep, and they likely burned a lot of diesel fuel getting there. Coming up to reduce CO2 emissions are nuclear powered cruise ships.
https://www.cruisehive.com/shi... [cruisehive.com]
Re: a cruise company based in Australia (Score:3)
That problem could be overcome, but a bigger problem is that it is a valuable target. Nuclear powered naval vessels are accompanied by additional vessels which can defend them.
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it is a valuable target
Not necessarily. It's quite possible to power such a ship [wikipedia.org] with lower grade fuel which has no weapons application. Sink it as a terrorist act? Good. A great place for an abandoned reactor vessel is on the sea floor [wikipedia.org].
Re: a cruise company based in Australia (Score:3)
No significant amount of nuclear material ever has NO weapons application. Even if all you do is use a conventional explosive to spread it across a sizable area it is effective.
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Not really. We've done that. And beyond a few days, it had negligible effects [raxcdn.com]. Many people [wikipedia.org] went to ground zero immediately following the blast and suffered no ill consequences.
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There have been nuclear cruse ships in the past. What I don't see is the cost being justified. Cruse ships don't have a long lives compared to other ships. An the profit margins are very thin as it is.
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Re:a cruise company based in Australia (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear is not green nor neutral.
Yes it is. With the exception of a few countries and some trolls on slashdot, nuclear is considered a valuable item to fight climate change. The toxic waste issue were address decades ago and a very manage. As for Fukushima, the water release, and Chernobyl. Those have been address satisfactory severl times over. But I do agree that a nuclear powered cruse ship isn't really something to pursue right now.
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The toxic waste issue were address decades ago and a very manage. As for Fukushima, the water release, and Chernobyl. Those have been address satisfactory severl times over.
Citation requested.
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There you go. There is more if you need it. I know its a wikipidia article but there is plenty more out there. Just do a search on google for nuclear waste reprocessing. There is a excellent documentary on youtube too.
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I see your wikipedia reference and I'll call your hand, (a poker reference): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Yeah, long term storage has been address. Nuclear waste isn't a big problem as people make it out to be.
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You don't seem to understand physics, do you? You fail to cite any substantial studies to dispute the long-term physics and management of extremely dangerous nuclear waste. The wikipedia reference you referenced only discusses some mitigation efforts. Nuclear energy is not a panacea, due to its substantial long-term waste issues, of which several citations exist within this thread. Hell, nuclear isn't even cost-effective. Let nuclear die, as it has been doing given economics, risks, and historical disasters
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Okay, let's do it this way. It's been addressed. Discussion over.
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what ever troll. You know its not, I know its not. Lets just end this here.
Re: a cruise company based in Australia (Score:1)
Troll calls me troll, yawn.
You're not just a troll though. You're a liar.
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Let me see which one of us has been caught lying so many times they had a warning attached to their account? Hint, it wasn't me. Here let's ramp this up to the next level and get it over with.
Go to hell you god damn fucking moron. We're tired of your FUD, your fucking lies and you just making fucking trouble around here. Nobody gives two goat fucks around your childish fears. You don't like nuclear fine, now fuck off. Am while you are fucking off, turn left on fuck off lane, and keep fucking off
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Let me see which one of us has been caught lying so many times they had a warning attached to their account?
[citation needed]
We're tired of your FUD, your fucking lies and you just making fucking trouble around here.
I am proud that you believe I'm a troublemaker, but I don't FUD and I don't lie. I don't need to. Reality has a well-known liberal bias, remember?
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I wouldn't call you a troll, but you're definetly an impolite twatt.
You've been called by several people about your lack of citations.
Either address it or behave yourself.
Re: a cruise company based in Australia (Score:2)
I see you never backed up your statement. You're a liar AND a coward.
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It very much depends on the fuel lifecycle. At best it can be on a par with wind, at worst it can be on a par with coal.
As for nuclear powered ships, an additional issue is that some countries won't let them dock.
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As for nuclear powered ships, an additional issue is that some countries won't let them dock.
To decide to refuse a nuclear ship to dock is to refuse doing trade with that ship, company, or even nation. The UK government has been working on nuclear powered cargo ships for some time now, putting in place the rules under which civilian nuclear powered ships will operate.
https://www.world-nuclear-news... [world-nuclear-news.org]
If other nations refuse to allow UK flagged nuclear powered ships into port then UK can refuse to allow any of their ships into UK ports. See how that works? UK can announce to the world that they wi
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Remember Concorde? The British and French could have denied landing to aircraft from any country that didn't allow the Concorde to enter its airspace. They didn't though.
The other issue is that despite the possibly* decent record of modern naval nuclear vessels, civilian ones are a very different matter.
*possible because they wouldn't admit it if they had experienced serious accidents. Russia certainly has.
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Remember Concorde? The British and French could have denied landing to aircraft from any country that didn't allow the Concorde to enter its airspace. They didn't though.
Concorde was a supersonic jet with a 3900 nm maximum range. Being supersonic meant the flight had to be long enough that going supersonic actually saved a meaningful amount of time, that put a limit on airports they could reasonably land in from the start. Having such short range meant that from UK or France much of the world's population centers were simply out of range. A map of 3900 nm range centered on London Heathrow: http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?R=3... [gcmap.com]
Further limiting routes for Concorde was having o
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Aussie to Greenland, thats a long cruise.
Yep, and they likely burned a lot of diesel fuel getting there. Coming up to reduce CO2 emissions are nuclear powered cruise ships.
https://www.cruisehive.com/shi... [cruisehive.com]
Nuclear is not green nor neutral. There's long-term waste that must be dealt with and that no one wants to even talk about. As if that's someone else's problem. Nuclear is arguably worse than coal for the planet in terms of its long-term toxic waste requirements and responsibilities. Don't both Chernobyl and Fukushima serve well as cautionary tales, (not to mention Hiroshima and Nagasaki)? This month treated, radioactive water has been spilled into the ocean because there's too much of it to store over the short-term, nevermind the long-term because that's not possible to manage. At one point ice-walls were engineered as a container, and they seemed to have failed in short order. Ironically, seafood is a big deal in that part of the world, (not that the radioactive water won't disperse -- and I Am Not A Scientist).
The idea of nuclear powered cruise-ships only seems like another accident waiting to happen, at sea no less, especially given the capital life of a ship. Hardly worth the overall risk, especially given their limited value to both the general public and the planet.
There's a reason it is so controversial for scientists to argue for nuclear powered probes like Voyager [eepower.com].
It is a well reasoned argument that I wrote, not a troll post. Not a reason for fanbois of nuclear energy to downvote my post to Hell, but this is Slashdot after all, and some people are stuck in an endless loop of their own making. Hopefully they'll be here long enough to clean up leftover radioactivity long after I've left the room.
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> There's long-term waste that must be dealt with and that no one wants to even talk about.
Al Gore led the fight to kill the Integral Fast Rdactor which was the successful National Labs solution to this problem.
All the "old tech" waste is "new tech" fuel.
We have a moral imperative to process 300,000-year waste into 60-year waste.
We cannot just blithely ignore all this horrendous pollution!
Fortunately a side effect of the cleanup is enough low-cabon power for the world for fifty years.
We really have no et
Re:a cruise company based in Australia (Score:4, Insightful)
The 112 passengers and 94 crew on the Australian tour operator's cruise had set off from Norway on 2 September and were due to return on 22 September.
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Now this is the tale of the castways, they're here for a long, long time, they'll have to make the best of things, it's an uphill climb. The first mate and the Skipper too, will do their very best, to make the others comfortable, in the tropic island nest. No phone, no lights no motor cars, not a single luxury, like Robinson Crusoe, as primative as can be. So join us here each week my freinds, you're sure to get a smile, from seven stranded castways, here on "Gilligan's Isle."
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I've been following the progress of that ship since it was pulled free. It first went to Reykjavik to unload its passengers - spending a couple more days there - and then headed off to Caen in Northern France. It docked there a couple of hours ago and my suspicion is that it is there for repairs. Two more ships from Aurora Expeditions Australia - Ocean Odyssey and Greg Mortimer - are also at Caen and it appears to be the equivalent of a Hub for that cruise operator.
NYTimes is paywalled (Score:1)
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Don't Greenlanders go south for the summer?
Asking for a friend
How does this happen? (Score:2)
I would imagine that a ship as fancy as this would have some kind of radar or depth sensing capability.
I know nothing about boats. Genuinely curious.
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Well, with tides and whatnot the water level changes over time, of course. There could be a shallower stretch that they thought they could navigate during high tide, but the transit took longer than expected for whatever reason. Or someone simply miscalculated.
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This is the truth. All the fancy equipment in the world doesn't stop someone from just reading it wrong.
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Human Error is Limitless (Score:2)
I would imagine that a ship as fancy as this would have some kind of radar or depth sensing capability.
People thought similar things about the Titanic too but it seems to remain a general rule that no amount of technology can overcome our capacity for human error.
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People thought the Titanic, a boat built in 1912, had "some kind of radar or depth sensing capability."? No they didn't.
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They did have methods to test depth in 1912.
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Of course they did. Did they have methods that were used on cruise boats that could be used while moving though? No they did not.
Similar != Identical (Score:2)
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I wouldnt say two things were similar because they're both "technology".
In other words, I dont understand how engineering that would supposedly allow a boat to survive a collision with an iceberg is similar to technology that would allow them to see underwater threats.
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Yes but in this case the "technology" was already put into context by the person you were responding to. No one thought the Titanic had "some kind of radar or depth sensing capability" or anything that is actually similiar to that.
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Now I'm curious. What is the procedure for when a boat or ship runs aground. What happens after they pull it off? I assume it must undergo some lengthy stay in dry dock to make sure the hull wasn't compromised in some manner.
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Ships don't stop suddenly. There are no brakes. So you are going ahead at a reasonable speed and the depth sounder says the bottom is rising, then it rises suddenly, as in sand bar. You stop the engines or even put them into reverse, but momentum carries you forward and whomp. Oops, stuck.
Even trolling across a fresh water lake it's quite common to see the bottom come up ten feet in the length of the boat. Too deep to see the bottom, then there is the bottom, then oh shit, reverse now. And then the sand cru
I hope ... (Score:2)
Leave him there. (Score:2)
Atrocious. Leave the captain there. Unemployed, in Greenland.
The ship is still static (Score:2)
There's a website which shows where a large number of cruise ships - and some ferries - are in pretty much real time and I looked at this ship's position yesterday. Initially it was shown as not moving, then - after it was reported as having been freed - it was shown as moving but still virtually in the same place. Now it is still in the same place and not moving. https://www.cruisemapper.com/?imo=9883194 [cruisemapper.com].
- the red circle shows where it was when you first opened that page
- if the ship is shown as a blob,
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ok, it is now around 400 feet SE of its previous position. Static again, but definitely mobile.
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Just a guess: They probably want to inspect the hull for possible damage before commencing a cross-ocean trip back to Denmark (or Australia or where ever).
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Whatever they were waiting for, it's over.
They are 15 miles N of where they were stuck, heading back out of the Fjord - or whatever it's called in Greenland - towards the open sea. The site I linked to says they are on their way to Reykjavik and that appears to be their actual destination and not one left over from before things went wrong.