This weekend I was notified by a passenger, on a German cruise ship named the Berlin, that the ship has been stuck in Dublin, Ireland for the past several days.
I was not familiar with the cruise ship or the German cruise line, FTI, which operates it. I have learned that the Berlin is considered to be a small cruise ship, carrying a little over 400 passengers. It was built in 1980 and is flagged in Malta.
The Berlin arrived at its scheduled port of call early in the morning of June 14, 2018 in Dublin, where it has remained for the past three days. The delay has already caused the passengers to miss the remaining port of call. It appears that the passengers will be disembarked today in Dublin and flown back to Bremerhaven. Embarkation for new passengers will reportedly occur tomorrow in Dublin.
“We arrived on 14 June suppose to sail same date 17.00. Suppose to sail yesterday then said today finally this morning captain said to guest waiting for information from the home office and port authorities. Guests were given 250 euro on their cards and refunded their excursion fares.”
The cause of the delay seems to be a problem with one of its 6 lifeboats which, reportedly, is “out of order.” The exact problem with lifeboat no. 6 has not been disclosed to the guests or crew but it was discovered by port authorities during an inspection on June 14th.
Maritime regulations including Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) regulations mandated by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) require a minimum number of operational lifecrafts (a combination of lifeboats and liferafts).
Photo credit: Anonymous
Interested in this issue? Read Floating Drydocks at Sea – A Growing Problem? It seems that passengers on cruise lines operated by German companies are subject to the same problems on U.S. based cruise lines.
