Sailor Rescued

A few days ago a French sailor, sailing solo around the world had to abandon ship half way between Tasmania and the Antarctic.

Yesterday he was rescued by a cruise ship, which went a long way off course to rescue him.

Anyway, it turns out the passengers on this ship paid a lot for their Antarctic cruise, and missed one of the main highlights of the voyage.

['A CRUISE ship company is refusing to say whether it will compensate passengers whose holidays were diverted to rescue a French sailor off the Tasmanian coast.
The MV Orion was 11 days into an 18-day Antarctic cruise when it changed course to come to the rescue of the French national, Alain Delord, on Sunday night.
Mr Delord sent out a distress call on Friday after abandoning his yacht, forcing the Orion to change course and miss a promised stop on Macquarie Island.
Fairfax understands the starting price for the voyage was about $20,000 per person. But Orion Expeditions, the cruise operator, on Monday refused to answer repeated questions about the cost of the rescue and whether it would compensate passengers.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/storm-brews-over-compensation-for-rescue-of-yachtsman-20130121-2d3a8.html#ixzz2IfYELatO']

I wonder how I'd feel if I'd forked out a lot of money and got sidetracked like this. On one hand, they saved this guy's life, but on the other missed out on the highlight of the cruise.

How would you feel?

 

While I am glad that they managed to rescue the sailor. I would be rather pissed if I paid that much and didn't get the entire trip.

I don't think the tour company should be responsible for compensating the passengers though. Isn't there some marine law that says the captain has no choice but to answer a distress call?

 

Yes. They do have to answer the distress call. He was extremely lucky - it isn't exactly a high ship area.

 

I don't see why a cruise company would be required to answer other ships' distress calls and pay compensation for something outside of its control.

Wouldn't Force Majeure apply here?

Not exactly sure what possible remedy there is for an acceptable solution for all parties. If the sailor was ill-prepared and that led to his emergency, would he be liable for the losses he incurred upon other people?

 

The first rule is that you help other people when they are in distress, just like they would help you.

Now, I have a hard time thinking that this cruise ship was the closest vessel to the sailor. Wasn't there some Japanese whaling ship around there...

Also, where is Australia in all of this? Yes, they don't patrol that far South, but they did drop flares and such by him. Maybe they could have dropped a dinghy with a motor and GPS and then had him motoring a few hours a day.

As for the paying customers, did they make it to Antarctica? If they did, then this was an unexpected thing and they should get a discount on another trip. If they didn't make it to Antarctica, then they should get another trip for free. The cruise line should get a bunch of free publicity out of this (it was on the news here in the USA), and the industry could use some good press.

 

ASU2003 from what ive read briefly these last few days, it took around 3 days to reach him, so there couldnt have been many people around that could get to him.

The article that spindles posted has a few important things to consider, most importantly the fact that the cruise ship had no choice whether to divert course or not.

i think if you paid 20K for a cruise , then surely you'd get travel insurance? that'd be the wise choice anyways.... i wonder if The_jazz can enlighten us on travel insurance policies and whether this sort of thing is covered.

 

No, Travel Insurance shouldn't pay anything - it's basically a cancellation hedge if you get sick or there is bad weather. Technically nothing went wrong here - the passengers were comfortable and well-fed. And they got to their destination - the return port of call. This is similar to fog obscuring the coast - it sucks, but there's not much anyone can do about it. The ship captain was legally obligated to go get this guy, just like the sailor would have been legally obligated to help the cruise ship had the roles been reversed.

Another good analogy is medical diversion of an aircraft - the plane gets you to where you needed to go, but if you missed a connection, that's just too bad. That's happened to me several times, and while it can be inconvenient (and at times irritating, like when I'm headed out on vacation), I'm an adult and realize that my schedule is secondary to someone's life.

If the cruise ship wants to offer the passengers to avoid bad press, that's one thing, but they are certainly not obligated to do so. Personally, I think these passengers are being petty and childish. Yes, I understand why they might be disappointed, but asking for compensation is pretty tacky.

 

With the kind of seas that were occurring in the area, the only real rescue option is another ship. So, Australia *did* have plane/s keeping an eye on the life raft, that was about the extent of what the plane could do. It took the Cruise ship (as Lish said earlier) a couple of days to go and get this guy and they were the closest vessel. We are talking a big empty area of nothing

I reckon if I was going to be rescued from the sea, a luxury cruise liner would be pretty close to the top of the list of vessels to do it.

I think the whole compensation thing is a bit of a media beat up anyway - I'm not sure any of the passengers have even asked for any (it certainly isn't clear from the article).

Also, they have a better story to tell now anyway - "I was on that ship that pulled that sailor guy out of the ocean saving him from certain death". That's cooler than seeing penguins.

 

Not if you're a native Aussie. Your legally required BAC is too high.

 

Hang on - it is the penguins from Happy Feet

File:MacquarieIslandLusiBAY.JPG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

BAC? blood alcohol count? so i guess im not a native aussie then huh?

ive seen penguins in Kurnell in Botany Bay. Thats in Sydney, precisly on the spot where Captain Cook landed back in 1788. They weren't emperor penguins though.

 

If I were a passenger I would understand, but not be pleased. I don't have much sympathy for these daredevil types who feel some great compulsion to push themselves to the limit and then find themselves incapable of completing their narcissistic mission (for whatever reason), when all is said and done.

As far as compensation? I would expect something to be offered, however token the offer might be. I would hope the French sailor and his sponsors would pony up something, as well.

 

what about the french guys insurance policy? im sure that it would include evacuation costs should he get into an emergency situation. Can these evacuation costs be covered by the insuramce company if the ship that saved him decided to send him an invoice? Or do insurance companies only recognize "evacuation" as evacuation by emergency services only?

 

What do we know about this so-called daredevil. Could it be that he is a very responsible sailor who just had a bad day? Let's not be quite so hasty to judge him.

 

Also, at what point is something too dangerous? Humans have improved over the centuries by *being* adventurous. If you start stopping people doing adventurous things, where do we end up? All sitting at home watching TV, wrapped in cotton wool?

In this particular case, no one is *really* out of pocket - the ship that rescued him was already in the vicinity (as much as something can be...).

There are other cases like Tony Bullimore (Tony Bullimore - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia), where Oz sent a Navy ship to get him and another sailor (separate capsized solo sailors). There was a lot of discussion at the time as to whether the (Oz) government should spend money saving sailors. I was and still am of the opinion that at Worst this is a good exercise to have your navy doing - better than them twiddling their thumbs on shore