Cruise Ship Law

A British passenger is feared to have fallen overboard from the world's biggest cruise ship in waters near Mexico.

The 30-year-old man, who has not been named, was seen falling over the railings by another passenger on the Allure of the Seas, the Royal Caribbean International cruise line said.

He could also be seen falling over in footage from an on-board video camera.

The man went overboard as the ship was sailing to Cozumel, Mexico. The Mexican navy and coastguard are assisting in the search.

The Allure of the Seas left Fort Lauderdale in Florida on Sunday for a seven-night cruise. The ship can carry 5,400 passengers.

A guest on-board the ship saw the man fall overboard at 12.10pm (7.10am local time) on Friday, a statement from Royal Caribbean said.

The company added: "The ship made multiple public announcements and began a complete search of the ship, in efforts to locate the guest.

"When the guest did not respond to the pages and was not found on-board, the captain alerted the local authorities of the situation.

"A review of the ship's closed-circuit camera footage observed the 30-year-old British male guest going over the balcony railing in his stateroom on deck 11.

"The location of the ship at the time the guest went overboard was marked on the ship's Global Positioning System (GPS) and the US and Mexican coastguard were alerted.

"Allure of the Seas, along with Mexican coastguard, Mexican navy and the pilot boat, conducted a search for the missing guest."

The coastguard released the ship at around 2.30pm (9.30am local time) and it continued on to Cozumel, where it arrived an hour later.

"Our care team is providing support to the guest's family and our thoughts and prayers are with them," the statement said.

"Allure of the Seas is currently sailing a seven-night Caribbean itinerary that departed Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on January 29, with port calls to Labadee, Haiti; Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico."

A spokeswoman for Royal Caribbean International said the ship had been fully chartered by Atlantis Events, whose website says it is "the largest company in the world dedicated to creating unique vacations for the gay and lesbian community".

The Allure of the Seas boasts a park with more than 12,000 live plants, a zip line, a theatre, a casino and a nightclub.

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office said: "We are aware of the reports and are looking into them."

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - A woman at the center of the Italian cruise ship disaster has told investigators she was indeed on the bridge of the ship when it wrecked, killing 32 people, the BBC reported.

Dominica Cemortan, 24, who was aboard the Coasta Concordia the fateful Fri. Jan. 13 night of its crash, was questioned by Italian detectives recently for almost 6 hours, the BBC reported.

Her testimony about the bridge seems to clash with that of the captain, who had said that Cemortan, who now says she "loves the captain," was not on the bridge at the time of the wreck, the British news agency reported.

"When the accident happened, I was on the bridge," the BBC reported that Cemortan, a former cruise worker at the time of the crash, told investigators recently.

No one but authorized ship workers should be on the bridge and some theorized the young woman's presence could have distracted the sailors, who were already off course and close to rocks.

In more shocking testimony, investigators say that Cemortan's belongings such as a suitcase, clothes and sexy underwear were found in Captain Francesco Schettino's room by divers. The woman has been described variously as a former ballet dancer and customer service rep for the cruise lines.

This would seem to tie the young woman and the married captain more closely than just "having dinner," as had been previously reported.

"Yes, it's true. I am in love with Captain Schettino," Cemortan  told prosecutors, according to Italian newspaper La Stampa, the Telegraph reported.

Capt Schettino is under house arrest facing charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship.

Cemortan is expected to be questioned again later and officials now say said they should be able to hold a preliminary hearing into the tragedy next month, John Honeywell of the UK's Mirror reported.

WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn.—Family members of a Minnesota couple missing in the Italian cruise ship disaster said Tuesday they accept the decision to end the search.

In a blog posting, the children of Jerry and Barbara Heil of White Bear Lake, Minn., say they are "certainly disheartened to hear the news" but understand.

Italian emergency officials decided to end the search due to the danger to rescue workers. The Heils are the only Americans missing in the Jan. 13 wreck.

"We cannot express enough our sincere gratitude to all those involved in the search and rescue effort. Time and time again, the rescuers faced many perils in the hopes of reuniting the missing with their families. We will be forever grateful for all those who worked so hard for people they did not even know, yet understood how important their job was for those that remained waiting for news," the Heil family said in a statement.

"As we struggle to come to grips with this tragedy, we find comfort knowing Mom and Dad are now in a better place free from any worries. They have always been obedient to God's plan and now we must do the same."

Some 4,200 passengers and crew were on board the Costa Concordia cruise ship when it capsized. Seventeen bodies have been recovered, of which one has not yet been identified. Sixteen people are listed as missing but are presumed dead. The last time anyone was found alive was Jan. 15.

The Heils are active members of the Church of St. Pius X in White Bear Lake, a St. Paul suburb. Church members describe the Heils as quiet, kind people deeply involved in their congregation. Jerry Heil, 69, who retired from a job at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, would teach religious education classes, and Barbara Heil, 70, would bring baked goods to class members.

Diane Vorwald, 48, who uses a wheelchair, said Jerry Heil would come to her home weekly to administer communion. In the summer, he would bring her fresh pies, she recalled.

"He's done a lot for me. It's a loss to me," Vorwald said.

The Heil family is making plans for a memorial service.

NASSAU, Bahamas -- Authorities in the Bahamas say a 26-year-old tourist from South Carolina died aboard a Carnival cruise ship over the weekend.

Bahamas police said in a statement Saturday that a man from South Carolina apparently jumped from one floor to another aboard the Carnival Fantasy ship that had docked in Nassau late Friday. He was declared dead at the scene.

Carnival issued a statement saying the guest apparently fell. They said the ship's visit to Freeport on Saturday was canceled due to the investigation.

Officials did not release the man's name or home town.

The ship left Charleston on Wednesday for a five-day Bahamas cruise. It is expected to return to Charleston on Monday.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Investigators in Florida do not suspect foul play in the death of a Massachusetts woman who fell down stairs aboard a cruise ship.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office identified the woman Monday as 47-year-old Barbara Wood of Middleboro, Mass.

The fall happened early Monday aboard the Liberty of the Seas operated by Royal Caribbean Cruises. The ship was just returning to Port Everglades from a four-night cruise that included a stop in Cozumel, Mexico.

Sheriff’s investigators said Wood slipped down the stairs and hit her head at about 1:48 a.m. She had just left the ship’s Catacombs nightclub.

The Broward County medical examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine exactly what caused her death, but it appears accidental, the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

A Royal Caribbean spokeswoman said its medical personnel responded but the woman died before the ship reached port. She said the cruise line was providing support to Wood’s family and friends.

“We will continue to do our very best to assist them,” said spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez.

Cruise ships' designs are at fault

As a descendent of a long line of ship designers and builders, I shiver when I see each new modern cruise ship hit the waves.

They are designed to have far too many passenger decks above the main deck. This, of course, is to get as many dollars per cruise as possible. This causes the center of gravity to be far too high above the center of buoyancy.

To make matters worse, the upper decks extend widthwise to the edge of the hull, and the upper deck contains the weight of water in swimming pools.

Perhaps ship designers now are not aware of center of gravity and center of buoyancy.

I do not blame the ship's captain in the recent overturned ship accident as much as I blame the ship's designers. This was an accident waiting to happen.

It's a wonder that some of the newer modern cruise ships haven't been overturned by broadside waves during a major storm.

This ship should have been able to hit the reef with considerable damage, but it should not have turned over.

As my wife put it plainly when I explained it to her, the cruise ships are now top-heavy.

Stuart H. McElroy
Colonial Beach

January 27, 2012 -- The Italian Association of Tour Operators announced from Rome this morning that passengers who survived the Costa Concordia cruise ship accident on January 13 without physical injury will each be offered $14,460 in compensation. The arrangement was hammered out in a meeting between Costa Cruises and several consumer groups.

The offer from Costa Cruises will provide a lump-sum of $14,460/11,000 euros/£9,199 to be paid to each surviving passenger, regardless of age, and would cover:
~ Damage to and loss of property, baggage and personal effects
~ Psychological trauma from the incident
~ Access to a Costa-provided psychological counseling program for those passengers who request it

The Italian cruise line has also offered to compensate non-injured survivors for:
~ The cost of the cruise, including port taxes as well as any expenses incurred during the cruise
~ Additional travel expenses incurred in returning home
~ Related medical expenses incurred

Costa plans to offer separate arrangements to the families of those who died, as well as any of the approximately 100 passengers who were injured during the grounding and evacuation of the ship and required medical treatment at the scene. The offer, however, has not been extended to over a thousand crewmembers of the Concordia, many of whom have lost their jobs.

Industry experts, as well as some passengers, voice less than positive reaction to the Costa offer.

Carlo Rienzi, president of Codacons, an Italian consumer watchdog group, offered an emphatic directive to the survivors of the Concordia tragedy: "The passengers are absolutely not to accept the compensation offered by Costa," he said. "The distinction made between who has been physically injured and who has not is absurd. This is why we urge every passenger to undergo medical visits, which would confirm any eventual permanent psychological damage. This could give them access to much larger compensations."

Passengers will be able to take legal action against the cruise line if they are unhappy with the amount.
The Associated Press interviewed Claudia Urru of Sardinia, who was aboard the Concordia with her husband and two young sons. Urru told AP that her family has retained a lawyer because they don't know what the real impact of the trauma will be, financial or otherwise. Urru said they are very worried about their children.Her eldest child is already seeing a psychiatrist. "He's terrorized at night. We are all sleeping together. We are having a very, very hard time."

Maritime trial attorney Charles Lipcon, founder of the award-winning maritime law firm Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina & Winkleman, P.A., offers his advice based on over 30 years of experience representing victims internationally in cases against the cruise lines. "This $14,000 offer is inadequate in my opinion. Claims made through an experienced admiralty attorney should be worth substantially more."

Although based in Miami, Florida, the Lipcon firm also represents clients in Europe, Central America & South America, Africa, and Asia, with the ability to handle matters across a wide spectrum of languages, including English, Italian, French, German, Norwegian, Polish, and Spanish.

By Monica Kim, Condé Nast Traveler magazine

The capsizing of the Costa Concordia has thrown a harsh spotlight on the international cruise industry. Much like the ill-fated Concordia, the $40 billion industry is being portrayed as a ship without a captain by media outlets including The New York Times. The event has also brought renewed attention to an issue that dates back to the Titanic: a faulty system of safety oversight.

The oversight system currently in place
The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) was passed by the maritime nations in 1914, spurred by public outrage over the loss of more than 1,500 people in the sinking of the Titanic. It was an international agreement that established safeguards such as ice patrols and set standard safety procedures, including the number of lifeboats required on a ship. SOLAS is now administered by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), an agency of the United Nations that updates the regulations at an annual convention (the Marine Safety Committee will next meet May 16-25, 2012).

The big problem
Though the IMO sets safety standards, critics have long argued that they are meaningless because the organization has no power to enforce them. Each ship sails under a country's flag, and that country becomes its "flag state." It is the flag state's responsibility to uphold SOLAS regulations (the Costa Concordia sailed under Italy's flag). In fact, in a 2001 speech, the former IMO Secretary General W.A. O'Neil conveyed that not all ships were being held accountable by their flag states, causing problems with safety oversight. "This flag State responsibility is at the core of the process and is applicable to all IMO Members, in equal measure," he said. "However, some of them may lack the skills and resources to carry out their responsibilities effectively."

The attempted solution
So without any jurisdiction over the countries deploying ships, the IMO emphasized the importance of a port's power and duty to inspect any incoming ships and make sure they are up to code. But a similar problem arises here: While all "port states" must check ships according to the basic SOLAS guidelines, it's up to each nation how far above and beyond those guidelines it wants to go. For example, U.S. Coast Guard officials inspect ships sailing through U.S. waters every year (checking lifeboats, structural integrity and watching safety drills to ensure the crew has been trained according to IMO laws); other countries may conduct inspections only every two, three or five years, according to Scott Elpheson, a senior marine inspector with the Cruise Ship National Center of Expertise, the Coast Guard center that trains ship inspectors. "No vessel is going to sail through our waters unless the minimum safety standards are met," says Elpheson.

Based on more than 30 years of research of maritime law, Judge Tom Dickerson, author of Travel Law, claims the U.S. has the best set of safety rules to guard passengers' rights. "When people ask me what kind of cruise they should take, I always say they should take a ship that touches a U.S. port," Dickerson says, though he could not comment on the records of other ports.

What will happen now?
In the end, the "flag states" still have the ultimate say on whether a ship and its crew are fit to sail, and their decisions are not subject to review by any international body. Marine safety advocates are hoping that the Costa Concordia accident might improve the current system. At a recent press conference in London, Christine Duffy, President and CEO of the Cruise Lines International Association, urged the IMO to carefully evaluate the findings from the Costa Concordia investigation to ensure the cruise industry remains as safe as possible. Duffy said, "While there is a great deal still not known about this incident, all of our members recognize the seriousness of these events and want to ensure we apply the lessons learned from this tragic event."

Thinking about booking a cruise? The crew may be unprepared.

Talk to cruise-line workers, and you won’t hear much surprise about the chaos during the Costa Concordia disaster. “Those of us who’ve had close calls before knew it was a question of ‘when,’ not ‘if,’” says Shari Cecil, a former merchant marine with Norwegian Cruise Line America. Cecil describes safety drills where crew members had no clue about their responsibilities—some were so nonchalant that they didn’t want to take off their high heels when boarding inflatable safety rafts—and the crew would be handed safety-reminder “cheat sheets” ahead of U.S. Coast Guard inspections. “I passed them out myself,” she says. “We’d even shut down the bar for crew so no one would be hung over.” (A Norwegian Cruise spokeswoman would not comment on specific claims but says “the safety of our guests and crew is, at all times, our No. 1 priority.”)

Former crew of numerous other lines say workers were often too exhausted to pay attention during safety-training sessions, and many didn’t speak enough English to even understand what was being said. Reshma Harilal says that during her eight years as a stateroom attendant with Carnival Cruise Lines, parent company of the ill-fated Concordia, boat-safety drills varied in regularity, and she never once had a native English speaker conduct training. “We all got safety training, but even I had difficulty understanding the English of the officers who trained us, who were always Italian with strong accents.” Carnival referred questions to the Cruise Lines International Association, which responded that “training must be conducted in a language that will be understood by the particular crew members.”

Though most big cruise lines like Carnival have headquarters and home ports in the U.S. and cater to American travelers, they are actually “flagged” in countries like the Bahamas or Panama, staffed mostly by foreigners, and incorporated overseas—thus allowing the companies to pay minimal U.S. taxes and circumvent many domestic labor and safety regulations. “There is a real absence of regulatory oversight or authority over the cruise industry,” says Jim Hall, who was chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board during the Clinton administration.

Yet the multiple investigations now underway into the Concordia crew’s handling of the disaster could change all that. “While I have every confidence in the safety of our vessels and the professionalism of our crews,” Carnival CEO Micky Arison said in a statement, “this review will evaluate all practices and procedures to make sure that this kind of accident doesn’t happen again.”

Those who’ve spent their lives in the industry say some answers are floating right on the surface. One is crew-to-passenger ratios, which have widened over the past few decades from an average of one crew member for every two passengers to one for every three, according to the International Transport Workers’ Fed-eration. Crew members work 12-to-14-hour days, seven days a week, for months at a stretch, with minimal time off. “Half the ship is working in a state of fatigue,” says James Walker, a former cruise-industry lawyer who now represents aggrieved crew. “All types of safety studies have shown if you’re really exhausted you can be impaired to the point of intoxication.” The mostly Asian crew of the Costa Concordia had been on an eight-month shift when the ship capsized after running ashore off the Tuscan island of Giglio. Accommodations were like the Titanic’s steerage section. Only managers had shared cabins, and the others slept in dormitory bunks.

“These are bean-counter dynamics,” says lawyer and author of Unsafe on the High Seas Charles Lipcon, who is in talks with several potential Concordia plaintiffs.

Detectives are investigating claims of sexual abuse against children alleged to have taken place onboard two of Cunard's most luxurious cruise liners.

It is claimed that a crew member committed assaults on the Queen Mary 2 and its sister vessel the Queen Elizabeth.

Wiltshire Police confirmed an investigation had been launched and they would be contacting all the parents who they needed to speak to.

The force also said it was working closely with the NSPCC and the children's charity had staff available to speak to parents if they wanted counselling or advice.

The Mail on Sunday reported that detectives started the investigation after a tip-off and that the unnamed man, who is under investigation, lived in Wiltshire.

A Wiltshire Police spokeswoman told the newspaper: "We can confirm we are investigating historical allegations of child abuse by an employee of Cunard cruise liners.

"Inquiries continue. The employee no longer works for the company."

And a force spokeswoman said: "We are unable to confirm any details at this time due to an ongoing investigation. However, we would like to reassure parents and the public that the police will be contacting all of the parents they need to speak to in the course of the investigation.

"If you are still concerned and would like some professional advice then you can call the dedicated NSPCC number 0800 980 4502. The NSPCC have advisors available who are aware of this matter and can assist parents if they have concerns about their children."

Cunard is part of the Carnival Corporation group - owners of the Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the coast of Italy - and operates the Queen Mary 2, the Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth cruise liners offering luxurious ocean travel.