Luxury Cruise Celestyal Crystal Involved in Collision

The suite and corridor do not belong to any star hotel …. ..but -

A cruise ship  is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship's amenities are a part of the experience, as well as the different destinations along the way. Transportation is not the prime purpose, as cruise ships operate mostly on routes that return passengers to their originating port.  Stay inside these vessels itself is considered a luxury – there are even "cruises to nowhere" or "nowhere voyages" where the ship makes 2-3 night round trips without any ports of call.  ….. at ports where they call, people would get down to trotter around and see the important places – these people are not getting out this luxury cruise at will ! Strange things happen at Sea !!!  Collision is the act of colliding; a coming violently into contact; crash. A collision is an isolated event in which two or more bodies (colliding bodies) exert relatively strong forces on each other for a relatively short time. Collisions involve forces and there is a change in velocity. In traffic such a collision can be between two vehicles, a vehicle and a person, a vehicle and an object, two persons or a person and an object (and more if an animal is involved). At Sea, collision could be a disaster. Celestyal Crystal,  is a cruise ship operated by the Cyprus-based Celestyal Cruises of the  Louis Group. The ship was originally built as the cruiseferry MS Viking Saga in 1980 at Wärtsilä Turku in Finland. In 1986 she was renamed MS Sally Albatross, and rebuilt into a cruise ship the following year. The ship was destroyed by a fire in 1990, and completely rebuilt at Finnyards, Rauma, Finland.  After partially sinking in 1994 she was rebuilt at Italy. A trip in cruise is luxury and enjoyment of holidays – but these holidaymakers were  forced to abandon their cruise ship as it collided with oil tanker off the coast of Turkey leaving huge dent in hull.  MailOnline and other Press report that more than  850 passengers had to be evacuated after their Mediterranean cruise ship collided with an oil tanker off the coast of Turkey, leaving a huge dent in its hull.Authorities said a huge disaster was averted after emergency service quickly responded to reports that the Celestyal Crystal and the tanker STI Pimlico had crashed at 1.30am on Saturday  [27^th June 15] morning in the Dardanelles Strait. Cruise operators said two crew members and a passenger suffered minor injuries in the accident as the vessel, registered to Malta, made its way from Greece to Istanbul;   853 passengers were taken off their ship, after the damage to the hull of the luxury liner.  It is further reported that emergency services were working quickly to stop a fire or explosion when oil poured out of the 182-metre long tanker, which had been traveling from Russia to Malta carrying flammable naptha fuel. It has not yet been established how the collision took place. A statement from the cruise line published on travel website www.cruisecritic.co.uk said Celestyal Cruises, which operates the ship, will arrange for passengers to continue their holidays on other boats.  The Cruise Lines have also offered full refunds for holidaymakers' cruise fares as well as second, complimentary seven-night cruises.  'With the safety and care of our passengers as our utmost priority, we will ensure the smoothest possible disembarkation for those on board since the current cruise will have to be cancelled', it said. There reportedly were no casualties among the 853 passengers of the ship, who were evacuated to Gallipoli port.  Ferry services along the Strait were cancelled for several hours during the clean-up operation. In an age, when navigation is done with advanced communication equipments, it appears strange that a tanker was missed to be seen and a collision occurred between a tanker and large cruise ship.
With regards – S. Sampathkumar
29^th June 2015.