MSC had a big week with the Euribia being delivered by the shipyard and the World America having its coin ceremony. Wednesday, the Euribia, highly anticipated, at least by me, was delivered into the hands of MSC. This is the most energy-efficient cruise ship design to date and the final iteration of their Meraviglia class. When in service, the Euribia will emit up to 19 percent less greenhouse gas emissions per passenger per day than using conventional marine fuels. This amounts to 44 percent less greenhouse gases per passenger per day than ships built 10 years ago, which will be great for ships like the Euribia that are scheduled to sail around highly regulated seas in places like Norway.
The handing off of the Euribia wasn’t MSC’s only ceremony Wednesday. They also celebrated the traditional coin ceremony for its next LNG powered ship, the World America. The coin ceremony is done early on in the ship building process with two commemorative coins being placed under a keel block, one by the ship’s godmother and the other by the godmother of the shipyard building the ship.
We talked last week about NCL cancelling the Norwegian Epic’s entire winter season in Europe. Well now we know why. Starting December 17th, the Epic will sail from Port Canaveral on 7-day Eastern and Western Caribbean itineraries. Recently Port Canaveral took the top slot from the port of Miami and cruise lines are taking notice. Have you ever sailed out of Port Canaveral? Comment bellow. I have yet to sail out of any Florida port, but we do have a future cruise porting out of Fort Lauderdale.
By now you have probably heard of the 35-year-old man who went overboard the Carnival Magic this week. Ronnie Peale Jr was reported missing Monday evening. After cameras were checked, it appeared he went overboard around 4:10am that morning. The statement coming from Carnival is that “security footage confirms that he leaned over the railing of his stateroom balcony and dropped into the water.” While this is a tragic event, it really brings a few things into question.
Many news stations are saying that Peale fell overboard, but anyone who has been on a cruise ship knows that accidentally falling overboard while just leaning on the railing is not going to happen. Railings are just too high. They are intentionally built to make it impossible to fall over by just leaning on the railing.
Only 3 ways someone goes overboard
1. Intentionally jumps – Wether because they are attempting to take their life or they are trying to get a viral video.
2. Foul play – While this is the least likely cause, it is still possible that someone might push or throw someone overboard.
3. Horse play – It might technically be an accident if someone is goofing off and falls overboard, it was preventable.
I still have a few questions. Why did his fiancé wait 14 hours to report him missing? She says she noticed he was missing at 11:30am when she woke up, but that still means there were 7 hours between realizing he was missing and informing the crew. Even assuming an hour or so before she realized he wasn’t just getting something to eat or hanging out somewhere on the ship, that is a long time to wait before being worried enough to report him missing.
Then she begin a go-fund-me within 24 hours of him going missing? Why? What are the funds for? There was no body to return home and no reason to believe there were going to be medical expenses.
I am not saying that there was foul play involved. If that happened, there would have been evidence on the security footage, and it doesn’t appear that there was. But I do not believe he accidentally fell overboard, and I do think it is weird that someone grieving and still hoping for the best would even think to start a money campaign. Having said that, the FBI is now doing an investigation, which seems a little unusual because the FBI usually only gets involved if there are no witnesses or video evidence (and there was footage) of what happened… or there are suspicious circumstances. So why the investigation?
And that wasn’t the only tragic man-overboard story of the week. This past Sunday, 18-year-old Cameron Robbins went overboard on a sunset cruise in the Bahamas. Grainy video does make it appear that Robbins jumped off intentionally, most likely due to taunting from some of the other teens onboard the ship. While this story doesn’t call into question how Robbins ended up in the water, there is still a lot of mystery surrounded the tragic event. The video shows a buoy nearby, but for some reason he almost seems to be swimming away from it. It is possible the waters were rough, that he was being moved against his will farther from the ship, but it is the internet sleuths that have really brought a possible tragic end to the forefront. Based on the videos posted, many believe a light colored object seen in the waters near Robbins is a shark and have brought up the possibility that he has been unable to be found due to a shark attack. While I think the video is too poor quality to know for sure what the object seen in the video really is, the waters in that area are known to inhabit bull sharks and tiger sharks, which are both aggressive species. I love a good internet sleuth revelation, but this is one mystery I hope they got wrong.
Unfortunately, search and rescue operations have been called off for both men, and our hearts really do go out to the families left behind to grieve and speculate. Please be careful when cruising! Don’t make stupid and dangerous choices.
Cruising From The Ozarks 