Terrifying Videos Of Cruise Ship Suddenly Tilting While At Sea

It seems some modern cruise lines want to take sea travel back to the days of the Titanic, and with all the food poisoning, accidental collisions and passenger sickness there's no time like the present to stay home.

But if you're thinking about taking a pleasure cruise you should check out this video footage shot by passengers aboard the Carnival Legend first, so you're prepared for any possibility.

(YouTube Link)

The Carnival Legend was heading back to Seattle after a week-long excursion around Alaska when the boat suddenly tilted to a stomach-churning degree, sending many passengers into a panic.

Water from the upper deck pools started pouring into the lower decks, people started screaming, but the passengers were (supposedly) able to shift the balance of weight and turn the ship upright again.

(YouTube Link)

Carnival issued this statement about the incident:

“Carnival Legend experienced a technical issue related to the ship's starboard steering gear which caused the ship to unexpectedly list about eight degrees.” They also said the “issue was rapidly corrected and the ship proceeded to its scheduled stop” and the “ship has been operating since that times without any issues.”

(YouTube Link)

Carnival may act like the ship tilting was no big deal, but those passengers probably won't be taking a Carnival cruise ever again!

-Via Aol. and Inside Edition


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If I was taking a ship anywhere, outside the tropics, I'd sirens $30 on a wet suit, and have it under my clothes at ALL times. It seems like very cheap, possibly life saving insurance. You could survive days in freezing waters, instead of just a few hours. You wouldn't drive through snow and ice in a T-Shirt just because your car has a heater... Why do people take the same chance on a ship?
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I don't feel like digging up the specs on the ship beyond the dimensions on Wikipedia, but rounding off estimates in the directions that maximize the amount of tilt (30000 tonnes of mass for the ship, 100 kg for each passenger, metacentric height of 5 m) gives a maximum tilt of ~1.5 degrees if all 3000 crew + passengers were to stand on the very edge of the ship. The actual value would be less since I'm underestimating the ship's mass and and over estimating the mass of people that could pile up on the edge. Also it would be less for the case of trying that with the ship starting level as there is usually a restoring force to ships that resists an increase in the list.
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I don't think "the passengers were able to shift the balance of weight and turn the ship upright again", but I'm getting mixed information about it. If it were possible for the passengers to tilt a ship by that much, then just think of what would happen when all the passengers on are one side of the ship to watch, say, whales going by or a glacier calving. Or if it did help, then imagine what would happen when the steering was fixed so the ship would be level again, except that now a bunch of people are causing the ship to tilt in the other direction.

There are people who said that in the videos, but it sounds like speculation. Wikipedia has an anonymous, unattributed edit which says "Passengers were directed by crew members to all stand on the right side of the ship to even out the listing". It also says the ship listed 30 degrees, while you quote Carnival as saying it was 8 degrees. The most details I found were from http://www.cruiselawnews.com/2016/09/articles/power-loss-1/propulsion-problem-causes-carnival-legend-to-tilt/ , which says some crew asked people to stand towards starboard, but I don't get the sense that it was meant to balance out the ship. I do get the sense that some of the crew panicked as much as some of the passengers.
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