Cruise ships with “nowhere to go”
Just had a note from our regular nautical expert Jaimie, who notes that it’s a long time since a cruise ship docked in Funchal and guesses that it could well be a lot longer before they return. With all the attention having been on the crisis facing airlines he had a look at what’s happening in the cruise shipping world.
All the blue icons in the picture below from the marine traffic AIS website are cruise ships all, as the Carnival Sunrise succinctly puts it below, with “nowhere to go“. Whilst aircraft remain grounded on the tarmac of various airports around the globe and their cabin crews sit at home with their families facing fears of job losses – cruise ship crews are left stranded, unable to dock and even if they were allowed into port, with countries borders closed and no flights, ships crews would be unable to be repatriated to join their families.
Some of Funchal’s regulars – Mein Schiff and the various AIDA’s are “holed up” similarly down off the Canaries where the authorities have given them refuge and support. TUI’s Marella vessels are anchored off the Solent or drifting in the Mediterranean.
The Guadian recently reported that while most cruise ship passengers eventually made it back to land, another crisis has been growing since – with no safe haven in sight. The Guardian investigation has foundthat, around the world, more than 100,000 crew workers were still trapped on cruise ships, at least 50 of which have COVID-19 infections. They describe how they are shut out of ports and banned from air travel that would allow them to return to their homes. Many are quarantined in tiny cabins, and some have had their pay cut off. They have in effect become a nation of floating castaways, marooned on boats from the Galapagos Islands to Dubai port. Full report here.
Fred Olson’s 4 ships are anchored in the Fifth of Forth. Quite a few ships are tied up in Southampton Water. I know some cruise lines have transferred their crews(apart from engineering etc) to one ship which has then sailed for the Phillipines & Indonesia to get the crews home. Costa are doing that on Monday.
Moderator
Please delete my two previous messages.
The cruise liners at anchor in Weymouth Bay are Queen Victoria, Queen Mary 2, Aurora, Arcadia, Ventura Azure and Britania.
CMV has 4 vessels in Tilbury Dock. There are also 2 Saga vessels.
In Weymouth Bay there are currently 4 P&O cruise liners and 2 Cunarders whilst 4 TUI (Marella) vessels are off the Isle of Wight
Nearly all of these vessels have made calls at Funchal within the last 12 months
Hopefully gone to their point of origin to be completely disinfected. Remember that most of them were one of the biggest sources of spreading the VIRUS. Or have we forgotten already? The RUBY PRINCESS in particular which dumped nearly 2.000 passengers at Sydney Harbour lying abt the severity of contamination on board. From there hundreds of people were infected and many lost their lives. 3 Independent investigations are currently before the Courts. Their Home Base, Panama, Tax Haven. So, don’t cry over lost Cruise Ships, just make sure they’re safe to dock & check every single passenger before they’re allowed to set foot in dry land. Iceland is doing it so should we. The monitoring app on your mobile ph.is a good way of tracking and informing people. A small invasion of privacy to pay for avoiding the second wave.