The reason it doesn't happen very often is that weather reporting and forecasting is so much better than it used to be and you can try to be in some other place when a hurricane hits.

But you make a good point, some day, some place one of the new meag ships is going to come to grief, let's hope the emergency drills turn out to be effective.

The Grand Princess was not built for Transatlantic crossings, she's a fair weather ship. That's why she will probably never be sent across the Atlantic anyway!

However, if the Grand Princess was caught in a storm, the passengers would certainly experience some discomfort. Rather than cut through the sea, today's flat bottomed giants would 'slap' there way. I would imagine that some damage would be sustained to the fixtures, fittings and even the thin hull and superstructure?

When modern cruise ships are repositioned across the Atlantic to Europe, they normally take a longer more sheltered route. They only attempt it before or after the winter. Only the QE2 makes the direct crossing between Southampton and NY, regularly throughout the year, including October, November and December.

Even the QE2 has sustained damage to her superstructure during storms. A few years back she received a large dent under the bridge, when she was hit by a massive wave.

Much of the cost of building the QM2 will be a strong superstructure and the traditional hull, constructed in one piece and made of extra thick steel.

Hurricanes:
The Carib is full of huge, slab-sided floating boxes. One of these days a hurricane and one of them will come together. Remember the Nordic Prince in St. Thomas a few years back! You can always run, but some times you cannot hide!

Fires: Yes there is safety in new designs, but a multilingual crew not speaking even a common language has caused serious problems in the past and could be a significant problem in a major disaster such as collision with a tanker. This has happened before.

For more details see my posting 8/28/99 in the 'Ocean Liner' section.

QE2's bow plates were slightly damaged in 1998 when she hit a 90 foot wave, but it was nothing substntial.

Its a fact that in the last refit, QE2 was given 9 new plates on her bow to allow for 30 more years of trans Atlantic crossings.

QM2 is , as Malcolm has pointed out - costing so much because Cunrad wish for her to be as strong as QE2.

A ship like Grand Princess would probably snap in two (down her GRAND ATRIUM) if a 90 foot Atlantic wave in the middle of a cyclone hit her.... For one they don't have the bow for slicing through the water like QE2 has, and also they aren't streamlined ships.

And of course, lets remember perhaps the most serious collision between a tanker and a cruise ship (serious because 423 lost), the ADMIRAL NAKHIMOV (ex-BERLIN 1925, a 61 year old liner) which collided with a soviet tanker and sank in the Black Sea on August 31th 1986.

At this time,I have no other information about the real causes of the accident.
I collected the few press articles when it happened (I haven't them now) and indeed there was a mystery about the veritable circumstances of the collision.
If I remember well, there were even problems to tow the ship during a while and the wreck was a danger for the traffic. I wonder (but I'm not sure) if there even were not difficulties and several attempts to sank the ship?
I should search informations but I'm afraid I haven't them here.
But maybe you could be able to remember me (and us) what the wreck became. Thank you.

My point was that ships are registerd to...well you know. If something bad happens they expect help from USA or where ever they r cruising then.

So they dont pay anything to but expect(?) services from other countryes.