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Originally posted by sunviking82:
WELL DONE STAR PRINCESS CREW! For those who felt Cunard would be hurt by Princess management should take note.

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Thank dear old P&O Cruises for the procedures, as the muster drill is virtually word for word the same.

I know the Cruise Industry will have some questions to ask by the "know it all & fickle" press, but the crew should be congratulated on the way they handled a potentially disasterous situation.

Andrew

[ 03-24-2006: Message edited by: OceanVoyager ]

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Originally posted by desirod7:
Oceania prohibits smoking all over except for a corner of an interior lounge and a corner of an exterior deck.

Time for the rest of the industry to follow

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Oceania Cruises' policy will now be very strictly enforced with "Zero Tolerance" for smoking in accomodations and on verandas.

excellent!

Best,

A ship like Star Princess can prevent internal spread by shutting down ventalation systems and closing fire doors and shutting the ship into its safety compartments.

In my opinion the fire spread rapidy due to the design of the balconies. The balconies are stepped in design and all exposed to the open air and other balconies.

As oxygen is a major fuel for fire and spreading fire as the ship was moving there would have been wind pockets in those balconies that sucked the fire in and caused it to spread. It is not necesarily the materials that spread it but more to do with wind and oxygen.

In order to stop an external fire on a ship the ship has to sheild the burning side from the wind and come to a complete stop.

As it is a cruise ship there may have also been other fuels on the balconies such as alcohol in nearly empty bottles etc enough to flare up if a cigarette was smoldering in its vacinity. I have often seen brainless individuals dispose of their cigarettes by placing them in empty beer bottles!

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Originally posted by mike sa:
From the webcam shots it seems that the fire was dealt with extremely quickly, at 8.09GMT the shot was clear with only some smoke visable 1 minute later, by 8.21 the smoke has cleared again - 12 minutes , perhaps the ship turned into the wind and it was blown away ?

911 BOSS - I too was on the Island P 1 when we were hit by Regent Sea, fresh out of dry dock in Seattle, on our return to Seattle for repairs I remember the headlines in the papaers "Love tap for Love Boat" !

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"30 investigators probing cruise fire

Observer Reporter
Saturday, March 25, 2006

MONTEGO BAY, St James - Up to late yesterday the more than 30 investigators who arrived in the island in the aftermath of Thursday's fire on the cruise ship Star Princess were working feverishly to determine the extent of the damage to the ship.

At the same time, the experts were trying to determine the cause of the fire, which resulted in the death of one passenger and the injury of 11 others.

The vessel, carrying 2,690 passengers and 1,123 crew members caught fire at about 9:10 am on Thursday as it got within 50 miles of Montego Bay.

The blaze resulted in the damage of 150 cabins before crew members extinguished it.

Yesterday, officials told the Observer that assessment of the damage was still incomplete and added the ship would remain at the Montego Bay Cruise Ship pier until it was safe to sail to Florida.

More than 600 passengers who arrived on the vessel left the island on chartered flights for the United States yesterday.

The remaining passengers are expected to leave the island on other flights by tomorrow. At the same time, the three passengers who were hospitalised in the aftermath of the fire have been released and were scheduled to depart the island last night."

Associated Press

MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica — Some of the passengers were stirred from sleep by the smell of smoke. Others were jolted awake by a fire alarm, then startled to see sparks drifting past the ship's windows in the Caribbean moonlight.

Some passengers, like Beth Bostrom, feared the worst as they saw flames on board the Star Princess as the ship made its way from the Cayman Islands to Jamaica.

"I looked to my left and saw this huge fire raging," Bostrom said. "I looked back into the room and screamed, 'Oh my God, there's a fire! The boat is on fire!"

Bostrom, a Nashville, Tenn., resident who was celebrating her 15th wedding anniversary with a weeklong vacation at sea, was among hundreds of passengers making their way home Friday and Saturday after the fire that damaged about 150 cabins on the gleaming white cruise ship.

Her husband, Marty, said smoke was billowing up the stairwell and over the top deck by the time they left their cabin in the pre-dawn hours Thursday.

"There was a point in time when I wasn't sure we were going to make it out of there," he said.

A big charred spot on the Star Princess was the only evidence from afar of the fire as it was moored in Montego Bay, on Jamaica's northwest coast.

One passenger, Richard Liffridge, 72, of Locust Grove, Ga., died from what Princess Cruises said was cardiac arrest. Eleven people were injured, including two who remained hospitalized with injuries from smoke inhalation.

Many passengers awaiting flights home from Montego Bay praised crewmembers' response to the fire. The company said it would refund the cost of the vacations for all 2,600 passengers and offered a 25 percent discount on their next cruise.

"If we did go on a cruise, we'd go on Princess," Beth Bostrom said. "We were impressed with them."

Richard Cox, a passenger who awoke to the smell of smoke, said the crew made passengers feel safe.

"You could see the lifeboats, they were getting them ready to go. That's when I knew there was something really important," said Cox, of Mason, Ohio. "When I saw that I went 'Oh boy, we're really going to go off the ship.'"

But the passengers did not abandon ship. Instead, they waited in designated safety zones for several hours, as they are instructed in the emergency drills that are required for all passengers at the start of a voyage. The ship then made its way to Montego Bay and canceled its final stop on a private island in the Bahamas.

A smoldering cigarette is suspected as the cause of the fire, but Princess Cruises spokeswoman Julie Benson said authorities were still investigating.

Hours after the ship arrived in Montego Bay on Thursday, passengers boarded buses that took them to hotels in the nearby resort towns of Negril and Ocho Rios. Other passengers remained on board.

The Star Princess was sailing from Grand Cayman to Jamaica when the blaze started. Reportedly built at a cost of over $430 million, it has four swimming pools, a half-dozen restaurants and dining rooms, a casino, two theaters, and several nightclubs. It stretches about three football fields long.

David Haltom said he and his wife were honeymooning on the cruise. Thursday morning they awoke to the smell of smoke and sounds of commotion in the halls.

"Everybody ran. There were people in nightgowns and robes because it happened so fast," Haltom said by phone from his Negril hotel.

The crew lowered lifeboats to the ship deck and instructed passengers to grab their life vests, he said.

Also, local TV and newspapers are reporting a rumor that these people heard on board, that the fire was set by an upset teenager who was angry with his father. This is only a rumor so far, but it is being investigated as a possible cause as to why the fire spread so rapidly.

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Originally posted by Deck 9 001:
The latest news report from The Jamaica Observer.

"30 investigators probing cruise fire

Observer Reporter
Saturday, March 25, 2006

MONTEGO BAY, St James - Up to late yesterday ...
The vessel, carrying 2,690 passengers and 1,123 crew members caught fire at about 9:10 am on Thursday as it got within 50 miles of Montego Bay.

"

Mike

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Originally posted by sunviking82:
We had friends of a friend abord the Star with their kids and in their e-mail gave VERY high marks to the Princess crew and how the situation was handled. I know that many people poo - poo Princess in the past, but I have always felt that their crews were some of the best trained and this just proves it.

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Originally posted by jsea:
We have always been impressed by how Princess handles its guests. The line's organizational skills, onshore and onboard always seem to be top-notch.

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I agree. There are many things I can fault about Princess, but their organizational skills and management (both ashore and onboard) are first rate. I think Princess offers the most consistent experience of any of the major lines. In a nutshell, they really have their act together.

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Originally posted by eroller:

I agree. There are many things I can fault about Princess, but their organizational skills and management (both ashore and onboard) are first rate. I think Princess offers the most consistent experience of any of the major lines. In a nutshell, they really have their act together.

Ernie

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Maryville couple on cruise ship that catches fire
Abby Ham
March 25, 2006

The couple was on the cruise celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary.

A section of a Princess cruise ship caught on fire Thursday morning. It was an incident that injured eleven people and killed one.

One local couple was on that ship. They say even three days later they cannot get the images of the blaze out of their heads.

It was the Bostrom's 15th wedding anniversary and a cruise sounded like the perfect getaway

Beth Bostrom says, "We have three small children and we thought just to get away and relax, leave everything at home just be isolated and have wonderful peace."

It turned out to be anything, but peaceful. Beth Bostrom says, "We were in the middle of the ocean and I looked over to my left totally not expecting to see huge flames shooting up the side of the ship"

At first, they took pictures of the fire then panic set in. Beth Bostrom says, "I don't think I was as scared in the room from the fire. It wasn't until we went out into the hallway and the whole hallway was full of smoke."

Marty Bostrom says, "I could feel the smoke in my lungs, just burning my lungs."

They were being evacuated to a lower deck, but getting there was the hard part.
Beth Bostrom says, "Your whole life quickly flashes before your eyes."

Marty Bostrom adds, "There was a point in time where I wasn't sure we were getting off that ship and at that point in time that's all I could think about was our kids.

Now they are back at home with their children talking, practicing the piano and just appreciating each other.

Marty Bostrom says, "As a parent with three small kids sometimes it can seem a little bit overwhelming. They can be such a challenge, but I just soaked every one of them in as I was home with them."

Authorities believe a cigarette started the fire.

WBIR-TV Knoxville

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If aluminium has been used extensively for balconies in recent years, but they perform badly in a fire, could we see a return to steel being used for them? What effect would this have on ship stability? Would this mean that fewer decks of balcony cabins? Or fewer balcony cabins and more outside cabins with only windows? What will this do to the economics of balcony cabins? Will the price premium go up?

I wonder about the capacity of the sprinklers. I've seen stores, for example, that had a fire in a storeroom that set off the sprinklers but not the alarms. No one knew about it until they came to work. The sprinklers completely extinguished the fire and saved the building.

But you'd probably have to restrict the capacity of a sprinkler in a passenger area, since you don't want to drown the passengers in the cabin!

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Originally posted by mrblanche:
The photos I've seen from the cabins damaged by the fire looked like the sprinklers worked and protected a lot in the room, but there was still a lot of damage.

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By the way, here's some really bad news (and the navy man up above probably knows this, and just forgot to mention it): Aluminum burns very well, once it's started, according the trainers at the US Naval Reserve Officer Traning School. And it can't be extinguished with water. The good news is that it rarely ignites. But that was a big concern with the US Navy on some of their newer ships, which had aluminum structures above deck to keep down their weight.