I've got a scenario for you, I hope you'll like it.

You're on a large cruiseship (400+ people) on the middle of the Atlantic-ocean with your family. (heading to Europe or US, also to meet some ETS-friends....)

In the middle of the night you wake up because of the fire alarm/smoke detector. There's a fire! It get's out of control
and the crew orders that everybody must abandon ship and get into the life-rafts.

-The weather is poor. It's dark, raining, storming, cloudy and cold.
-The crew did send out a SOS, but because of the weather, SAR-helicopters are grounded. A Coast-Guard ship is on it's way,
but it will take a very long time before it get's to you.

You're still in your cabin with your family. They wake up and aks you what do we do? You start thinking......

From this point on, you can take over the scenario, How should you proceed, how are you prepared for this emergency?
What gear did you bring with you? How would you take care of your family?

IOW: How would you survive?

Did you pay attention to the lifeboat drills, or, like most people stand there day dreaming about the crabcakes and mellon balls? Did you explore alternate routes to your assigned lifeboat station? The dangers of crowd behavior didn't stay on land. Do you have some quickly grabbed and donned clothing ? Some of the survivors of the General Belgrano made it into liferafts only to die of hypothermia. A watch cap, gloves, warm pants and easilly donned sweater or jacket should be mandatory for everyone. A whistle and mirror, LED light and bit of high energy food in a pocket wouldn't hurt. Just because there is heavy weather doesn't mean you are alone. Emergency agencies will contact merchant shipping and naval vessels in your vicinity. I'm trying to figure out what weather grounds SAR units. A C 130 will probably be circling overhead in weather a seagull would avoid.

The scenario is about what YOU would do, so that would differ from person to person. (Personally I would do it)

- Grab ditch kit
- check the wall and doors for heat.
- check for smoke
- open door slightly and check conditions in the hall way.
- If hall way is clear, time to run.
- find your self a PFD and wear it.
- go on a open dek with the life rafts/boats.
- board lifeboat.
- if no lifeboats are availible, wait for the liferafts to be deployed.
- check wich way it infaltes
- ask somebody else to help you flip it the right way, if the raft is upside down.
- check for jump clearance and time the waves.
- jump with one hand covering you month and nose, while the other is supporting your other arms elbow. With ditch kit secured.
- Flip the lifeaft the right way, if it deployed upside down.
- get in to liferaft
- help other to get in the life raft.
- Use "teabag" methode to get the heavy poeple in to the liferaft. ( do NOT use this methode with people that have been in the water for more than a few minutes)
- Order people to start removing the water inside.
- loose wet clothing (unless the insulate when wet), get dry, change in dry outfit, wear as much insulation as you can and wear PFD again.
- Toss out sea anker when you far enough from the ship, but not to late either.
- check the amount of people you have in the raft.
- check supplies
- give everybody on board as task.
- wait for help
- when help is spotted, use signal divices to attract attention.

If somebody else takes command of the liferaft, follow him if he does the right thing.

Let the others (familiy, friends, etc) follow me during the proces and give them instructions, if they did not received sea survival training.

What would you put in it? Do you own a ditch-kit, PC2K?

Are there restrictions on what can be brought on a cruise-ship? (sharps, fire-stuff,etc.)




Also: put on your smoke evac-hood if you have them and use your flashlight.

no i don't have a pre-made ditch kit. I prefer to make specialised kits for specialised situation. Besides i'm not very often on a ship.

I don't think a big ditch kit is handy in a cruise ship, to many stairs to take and too many people around you. So probably just a small waterproof bag, with a micro fiber towel, some fleece based clothing, basic waterproofs, strobe, signal mirror, some water and some food. Whistle is standaard on you PFD, if not also part of mine EDC. Flashlight is also EDC.

As an alternative, I'd pack the whole kit into a jacket with big pockets.

TRO

well carring a survival kit incase your cruise ship sinks, is a bit of a challange. I do really need spare clothing, since i certainly not planning to running around in a survival suit/wetsuit/drysuit, when on a cruise. They generally don't fit very well in a jacket pocket. Although " crazy eric " seams to do it.
Carring it as a backpack, might force you face down in the water, because of the boyancy on you back. Not sure what would happen if you wear it in front of you. I do know that jumping in the water with you PFD is bad enough. Really don't want another big thing attached to me.

Turning a PFD in a loadbearing vest for your kit, isn't to great either. Since it limits your movement and you stilll have lack of space, besides i'm not carring a PFD on a cruise all the time. So i don't think there is a perfect solution for a cruiseship...

I've only been on one steamship in my entire life. The (rigid)lifeboats were down low, right beside large openings that were only two feet or so above the water. If the old tub started going down, it looked like your would have to go DOWN inside the ship to get into the lifeboats, or jump from the rail. Getting soaking wet in a survival situation seems counter-productive to me.

So, does anyone know how lifeboats/rafts are actually deployed from a cruise-type ship? Are they loaded with people on deck and then put over the side? Are they put in the water first, and people have to get into them from there?

Do liferafts of any kind actually have sea anchors? I read somewhere that it takes about 10 minutes to get one into the water from a fishing boat.

Sue

the rigid lifeboats are filled on deck and lower with a davot (or however you spell that), they do NOT work when the ship is not straight. The old ones uses a LOT of muscle power to lower. They are great if they can deployed, because you will be dry. Now if only the ship would just stray absolute straight, when it's sinking... This huge disadvantage is one of the reason why we got infatibles ones. (also much smaller)

The inflatible onces are mounted in big canisters. They can be throw out manually or when the ship sinks a build in devices slices the cannister from it's mount and let the liferaft surface. They are deployed in the water, so only way to get to them is to jump in the water and climb in them. Getting in one is a pain in good conditions, waves makes it much easier to board, but makes the stay inside miserable. Most liferafts have 50/50 chance of getting deployed in the water upside down. The underside is black and does not provide shelter from wind and rain, so you have to manually flip them over. You have to climb up on the bottom, preverbily with 2 man. Grab the lines on the bottom, stand on the edge and lean back.

and yes, getting wet is bad, but if you can only show me a methode of getting in to a liferaft, without getting wet... Thats why you should have a pair of clothing in your ditch kit. (if you have one)

the sea ancors on liferafts are actually just a big fabric scoop like thingy with a line attach to it. Just find the thing in the raft, attach it to the raft and toss it out. It's suppose to drag water with it, to prevent you from blowing to far away from the ship. Searchers usually start there search from the wreck outwards.