Cruise ship drifts to shore in wind change
(CNS): The Thomson Dream cruise ship found itself in a tight spot on Monday when the wind shifted and the ship was pulled towards the shore. The captain requested assistance from the Port Authority and two tug boats were sent to pull the ship away to a safer anchor, the government agency confirmed.
Thomson Dream gets into difficulty in Grand Cayman
Bodden Shipping, the agents for the cruise ship, which is operated by the UK holiday firm Thomson, said nothing was hit and there was no damage done in the George Town harbour today. Despite some sand being stirred up as the tug boats moved the vessel, no coral was damaged during the operation to move the ship clear of the shore, which attracted a considerable amount of attention.
The port also confirmed that the Maritime Authority carried out an inspection and the ship did not run aground.
A spokesperson for Bodden Shipping explained that when the ship arrived this morning, the wind was from the south but the shift in the weather meant the ship began moving towards the shore and did not have enough power at anchor to move away. The tug boats were therefore called in and they pushed the stern of the 50,000-ton vessel, which was carrying over 1400 passengers, allowing it to move forward and out of harm’s way without incident.
The ship departed safely at around 5-15pm Monday.
Category: Local News
That ship should have never been granted permission to anchor there. It looks like the harbour master doesn’t check the weather forecast!? How did they not know the wind would switch? That’s two major screw-ups in less than a year and my bet is no one will be held accountable. At this rate we may have a really cool carnival dive site in the near future.
Really…?
So what here counts as unexpected? Wind shifting in Cayman? Ship not having enough power at anchor to manoeuvre?
Neither of these contributory factors was a surprise so the decision to anchor where they did was a bad – and dangerous – decision. Who made that decision?
I agree in that the ship should not have been there in the first place.Come on with only one ship in port(if I remember correctly) it should have been put in the center anchorage area.No wonder we have a had problems lately.Of course IF we had put in permanent moorings way back when this would never happened in the first place.
Wonder if Thomson Dream will be back?
it us scheduled to come in on March 2nd at least