Viking Sky in a Norwegian storm…

It’s not often you get an accident or a tragic even to do with a cruise ship and when it does happen you can be assured it will hit the news. This being so recently with the Viking Sky that had lost it’s engine power and got into a little trouble at sea off the coast of Norway.
The ship was off the west coast of Norway when it had to call “Mayday” for help after getting into trouble during a heavy storm. The boat suffered engine loss amid the heavy winds after being battered by the storm.

There were some 1373 people on board at the time the boat was getting into trouble. 200 of those passengers were British holiday makers. The cruises was on it’s 8th day of a 12 day voyage of the Northern Lights when the drama began.

Reading the press, some described it like being on Titanic. Not sure how they can quite compare it to that when Titanic was over 100 years ago and I think the circumstances were a little different. Titanic never got into trouble during a storm, we all know it hit an Iceberg and sank. Not that any of us need a history lesson as I’m pretty sure we all know that story and if we didn’t I’m sure we’ve seen the movie. But I’m not saying that those on board weren’t in fact terrified or may have feared for their lives as you just don’t expect this to happen and not on a cruise that you’re ever on.

Having waves as high as 8 meters smash against the doors and with the ship swaying and furniture being broken, it’s probably enough to frighten anyone. Thankfully there were no fatalities and no one was seriously hurt. The passengers were rescued and air lifted to a helicopter to safety, that being a free excursion!

After the ordeal the ship did eventually enter the port of Molde after getting it’s engines running again. The chairman of Viking Ocean Cruises spoke of his relief after the incident and had been quoted as saying they were lucky and it was the worst he’d ever been involved in and he went on to praise his crew for handling the situation the way they did. Were you on board, did you find the events as dramatic or even worse than what’s been said in the press? Do let me know.