Cruiseship narrowly misses divers

[Moodiejeff]

they could throw the captain and/or pilot into a Mexican jail for a few years.

Back to my original question... who pilots the ship into port? The Captain or do they send out a "local" captain to bring it in? I'm assuming since it's not too difficult :11: of an approach they must let the ship's Captain do it.

Second, how the hell did they go over Paradise reef? It's pretty close to shore and why would you be that far south of the docks? I do realize that Paradise runs right up to, and probably under the piers. It would also be interesting to know how close the divers were to the pier. How far south of the piers did all this happen?

Questions, questions and more questions! Any locals want to clue us in?

 

[Moodiejeff]

Ok, I'm obviously thinking about this waaay too much but there's not much else to do on a Sunday afternoon here... that and too much coffee.

How is this even possible?

1. The piers are on a diagonal slanting away from the reef
2. The cruise ships come in nose first
3. Unless the ship is backing in and swung way wide I can't picture it.

Any thoughts? Am I missing something?

 

[Dan Kom]

Word here is that the Capt. said that his side thrusters/propellers failed on the ship.
Dont know how much of that is true, but maybe so. Who knows....

 

[scubawife]

Not sure it it's the case in Cozumel, but in most ports, there's a "valet parking" of sorts. A pilot will board the ship when it approaches waters under the port's control. The pilot usually takes the helm and brings the ship into the harbor and docks her. They also take the ship out of the harbor then disembark to a harbor patrol boat that comes along side as soon as the ship has left the official harbor boundaries.

If that's the case in Cozumel, then I wonder where the official harbor boundaries are and who was at the helm. If it was a harbor pilot then aside from a major equipment failure there would be no excuse. A captain not familiar with Coz could try and come up with something.

 

[mike_s]

Back to my original question... who pilots the ship into port? The Captain or do they send out a "local" captain to bring it in? I'm assuming since it's not too difficult :11: of an approach they must let the ship's Captain do it.

Once when I arrived at cozumel on a cruiseship, a small tender/work boat came out a few miles from the island (about 20 minutes before we docked) and offloaded a "Harbor Pilot" (A local captain who takes control of the ships movements coming into harbor/dock). The side of the boat had "Pilot" written on it I think.

I don't think the Harbor Pilot actually puts his hands on the wheel/throttles, but directs the crew/ship-captain in docking, speed, turns, etc.