Posted on Friday, July 30, 2010 by Peter Knego
SAPPHIRE PRINCESS at Ketchikan, Alaska. Photo and copyright Peter Knego 2009.
Princess Cruises’ 116,000 gt, 2004-built MV SAPPHIRE PRINCESS had a second encounter with a whale, this time a 43 foot adult female humpback, between Juneau and Ketchikan at approximately 6:00 AM Wednesday, July 28. The 2,670 passenger ship had to stop south of Douglas Island so the carcass could be removed from the bulbous bow on Wednesday afternoon. SAPPHIRE PRINCESS had a similar incident on July 25, 2009 when it struck a dead fin whale that had to be removed from the ship’s bow in Vancouver, B.C.
Peter Knego’s Sea Treks Blog: SAPPHIRE And Ice: Southbound Alaska On The SAPPHIRE PRINCESS
Heinu Schütte
July 31, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Is the Captain a Captain Ahab wanna-be?
Ben Olson
August 1, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Maybe next year’s Whale Wars series will be set in Alaska with the Sea Shephards fighting Princess Cruises?
GREGG
August 3, 2010 at 3:50 pm
once again, enough of these monster ships going up to Alaska, this never happened when the smaller more realistics ships went up there. It makes me sick to hear abouth this again….shame on Princess!!!!!!
Kalle Id
August 4, 2010 at 2:33 am
Add to what GREGG said above, of course we only register the cases where the whale is actually caught in the bulbous bow. There are probably countess other cases where a ship hits a whale, possibly severely injuring it, that go completely unnoticed because the carcass of the whale is not seen by anyone. So yeah, I’m with the whales on this one.
(Relatedly, kudos for Costa Cruises who reportedly are taking measures to avoid incidents like this).
David
August 5, 2010 at 10:31 am
I agree with Greg. NO MORE MAMMOTH SHIPS IN ALASKA IT’S A WILDLIFE HAZARD AND NOT TO MENTION DUMP 3000 PASSENGERS IN A TOWN WHO’S POPULATION IS BARELY HALF OF THAT ! shame it really is. alaska should be a specialty market like it was years ago with small ships Xanadu(PACIFIC STAR-WESTOURS, DELOS, ETC…) Princess Patricia, Princes George, West Star (WESTOURS).
SPEAKING OF WEST STAR ANY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO HER, SHE I HAD HEARD WAS SOLD TO NEGROS NAVIGATION OF THE PHILLIPINES AND WAS RENAMED DONA MONSERRATT BUT CANT FIND ANY INFO ON HER.
Ed Ostermeyer
August 7, 2010 at 7:10 pm
It seems that Sapphire Princess still hasn’t shaken her “hoodoo” reputation.
You will recall that, as the original “Diamond Princess,” and first of her class, the ship suffered damage in 2002 due to an extensive fire while under construction at Mitsubishi’s Kyodo yards. Rather than retain the ship’s name until repairs could be made, Carnival/P&O/Princess took the “Diamond Princess” moniker and gave it to her nearly completed sister ship so that the first ship of the “Jewel” class of cruise ships, the “Diamond” would meet the original launch date.
As old salts will tell you, taking the name away from a new-built ship before she’s launched puts the “jonah” on her.
I’d keep an eye onth “Sapphire” boat’s future. Her career could get, ummm, “interesting.”
David Walker
August 7, 2010 at 11:57 pm
Sapphire Princess has been in service for over 6 years. Probably sailed the Inside Passage of Alaska 100 times and the Mexican Riviera twice as many times. There are whales all along the Pacifc Coast from Alaska to Mexico, and out of 6 years of service two dead whales don’t make a ‘curse’. Cruise ships by the hundreds have sailed the waters of Alaska thousands of times in the last decade. The impact of pulling them all out would be more devastating on the Alaskan economy and even Alaskans don’t want that. The reversal and reduction of the Head Tax is proof, and they are begging ships to come back in 2012! Like it or not, they are here to stay.
David Walker
August 8, 2010 at 12:34 am
P.S. Love the standard ‘thrown in’ comment that things should be done in Alaska like is was done ‘years ago’. It hasn’t been like that in 15 years or more, and if what was done ‘years ago’ was even remotely successful it would still be like that now. But it isn’t. Ships of at least 70,000k grt and larger have been sailing in Alaska for 10-15 years or longer. How many whales strikes reported? 10? Maybe 15? We still have small lines like Cruise West up there, but I would rather have 1 ship carrying 2500 people than 15 small ships carrying the same number of people. And maybe it’s a good thing it was a big ship that hit the carcass. Imagine if a much smaller cruise ship with passengers hit a sick or dead whale, and in the middle of the night.
Gerry S
August 12, 2010 at 12:54 pm
A smaller ship may have seen it on it’s radar and avoided hitting it. What if it was a small vessel instead of just a mammal ? Most collisions with whales probably don’t get reported because nobody with a radio or phone was in a position to report it. There was a program on TV that supposedly showed how much the people of Alaska really hate having big ships coming in and spilling out a couple of thousand folks at once. Sure, some love it because of the tourist dollars spent, but most of the gift shops carry the same things, regardless of which town you’re in. Most of those towns couldn’t handle 15 small ships at once so the crowd impact would be smaller.
G
August 25, 2010 at 7:06 pm
I don’t want to see whales hit, hurt or anything else either it’s important to know, while speaking to the bridge crew of a large ship, I was told that Whales are not picked up by radar. yet I’m guessing a whale can tell when a Ship is near.
Not condemning or condoning, just offering some information and a little knowledge.
Vincent
June 2, 2011 at 3:50 pm
Hi,
This is in response to David’s inquiry regarding the whereabouts of WEST STAR.
We have her in our database, I had asked for it from our group admin in Philippine Ship Spotters Society in flickr.
heres the link:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/psss/discuss/72157612769363823/page12/
specific info about WEST STAR:
Single Ship Report for “6622599″
IDNo: 6622599 Year: 1967
Name: CABO IZARRA Keel:
Type: Passenger ship Launch Date:
Flag: ESP Date of completion: 3.67
Tons: 3658 Link: 1730
DWT: 913 Yard No: 120
Length overall: 104.9 Ship Design:
LPP: 93.0 Country of build: ESP
Beam: 15.8 Builder: Soc Espanola de CN (SECN)
Material of build: Location of yard: Matagorda
Number of
screws/Mchy/
Speed(kn): 2D-19.5
Naval or paramilitary marking :
A:
End:
Subsequent History:
70 WEST STAR – 75 DONA MONTSERRAT – 79 XING HU
When she was new in China:
http://www.photoship.co.uk/JAlbum%20Ships/Old%20Ships%20X/slides/Xinghu-01.html
Peter Knego
June 2, 2011 at 4:30 pm
After a long stint in Chinese service, WEST STAR was scrapped as XINGHU near Guangzhou, China in 1999.