Even if they did make a decision to not stop due to some possible terrorism/hijacking/pirate threat, they would still have had a responsibility to communicate the situation with national authorities (US Coast Guard, local Coast Guard, whomever). They didn't do that; they just ignored it.

That assumes that someone with the ability to contact those authorities was aware of the situation. We just do not know that is the case. IF they did know what was going on, they certainly had such an obligation.

Someone on the ship's bridge had to see the fishing boat and that information should have been relayed. If not, then the competency of the crews hired by the cruise lines really needs to be evaluated. What are they doing up there if the passengers are seeing things and the bridge crew is not? I may have answered my own question on competency.

Yep ... I think you've found the answer to the problem.
They need to replace the ship's First Officer with bird watchers :-)

Pete2

They say they didn't ignore it. They weren't aware of it. Given that they did stop on 30 previous occasions, the notion that they aren't allowed to stop or for some reason decided not to, is ludicrous speculation.

It may be worth noting that the report does not say they actually "stopped" 30 times in the past decade.

My guess would be they're taking care of the passengers ...

Quite a few of the crew are there for passenger comfort. The bridge crew is there to drive the ship and not hit things.

Well, they succeeded, right? Didn't hit the people trying to signal.

But, we don't necessarily know the circumstances - perhaps they had some sort of VIP or other issue going on that would distract them. Ideally, you're right - bridge should keep their 'eyes on the road' so to speak. But really, given how much water there is and how boring that horizon has to get, I can't imagine someone has eyes outboard every second of the day.

On the professionally run vessels I have encountered, that is precisely what happens- usually more than one pair of eyeballs, as a matter of fact. All the same, I can readily imagine there are lots of exceptions.