Making waves in a literal sense

[Deleted member 149562]

Sometimes on forums like this, we come across outragious things going on and can feel powerless to do anything against it. One such incident happened back in 2008 when I ran a forum like this about cruise ships & cruising. The incident started with an email from my travel agent and took a little over a year to finally fix. I apologise in advance for the length of this story.

The email told me that a couple were on board an elderly cruise ship, Discovery, and that they were missing ports and sailing extremely slowly. Having asked the crew what the issue was, the couple had been stonewalled. These people, and the others on board, had paid upwards of 10k each for a Baltic exploration cruise. The ship was the sister of the original Love Boat built in 1971, single vessel operation that had, in previous years, been very successful.

I started tracking the ship on AIS. It was definitely not running well. I did a search of previous cruises, the slow running and missed ports seemed to be quite common. About 7 months prior to the current cruise a very well known and respected ocean liner historian had been aboard the ship and noted that as they left Manaus she had grazed a sandbar. From that point onwards she had been running on one engine. Red flags were starting to fly for me.

Next step was to check on her inspections. Looked on the MCA website, and low and behold she was only just passing her inspections...oily water in engineroom, poor state of maintenance etc. More red flags.

I contacted the company...no dice. Totally stonewalled.

By this time, after I had mentioned the engine issues on the forum, a steady stream of people joined the forum with their stories and photos of serious issues with the ship and the stonewalling from the company.

I had a friend in the MCA, gave them a call, explained the situation to see if they could shed light on it.

At this point what had started with an email snowballed into an international cat and mouse game.

For the next 6 months, the ship was operating under the scrutiny of the various countries that it visited across Scandinavia, Baltic and Mediterranean. I ended up on the BBC along with a lawyer from Which?, there were articles in all of the major UK media outlets. No-one could get anything from the company as to what was going on. I had literally hundreds of passengers, with photographic evidence all telling me how bad things were on the ship. The ship was inspected at every single port, barely passed inspection but as things stood they could not impound her...cos she passed....just scraped a pass.

The last port and where everything finally came to a head was Gibraltar. Being a British port the MCA had a chance to stop her. She was due to sail for Antarctica and the MCA could not allow that in her state. By now the flag registry, Bermuda, and Lloyds of London were involved. The nightmare finally ended when her captain bravely stood up to his bosses and refused to take the ship any further until she had been repaired.

The repairs were done, she sailed for Antarctica, did one expedition cruise and her season ended abruptly in Ushuaia. The company fired the MD who had stonewalled everyone, financial malpractice was found and the company folded. The ship was sailed back to Italy, then India for scrapping.

As a direct result of that one email, the bar was raised on vessel inspections...no more barely passing, a ship either passed fully or it failed. Cruise lines were more regulated, their ships were inspected more often and companies with specialist ships and older ships were more tightly checked in all aspects, not just the state of the ship. Cruising in Antarctica and Arctic regions tightened their rules too meaning many older vessels were banned as a direct result of this one ship and her poor maintenance that had been hidden by her owners.

Everyone who sailed on the bad cruises received full refunds via the company's winding up administrators.

The moral to this......just cos you are only one voice on a forum, if there is something that is not right or needs changing....it can be done. Takes alot of work and sleepless nights but it can be done.

 

[Colin_T]

OK, so now I have read the story about the ship, what's this really about?
What are you upset about?

 

[Deleted member 149562]

OK, so now I have read the story about the ship, what's this really about?
What are you upset about?

The dismissive attitudes that seem to be around generally thesedays

"Changes in legislation affecting fishkeeping"
"Poor husbandry & cruelty in breeding of specific fish and overuse of medications and genetic modification"

Yes...we ALL know these issues exist, yes we ALL show outrage - some of it faux

But when it comes down to actually standing up and being counted and doing something about it...in a way that doesn't mean you get arrested....suddenly everything is fine, no way to stand up to these people who do wrong, no point trying to change things by bringing it to the attention of those who CAN change the situation

Years gone by people stood up for what they believed in. People stood up against bad practice and made noise til something was done about it.

Where has that fighting spirit gone......once upon a time people had the courage of their convictions and beliefs and made things change, no matter how hard it was or how long it took

I have taken on cruise lines (Voyages of Discovery & CCL), tyre manufacturing giants (Goodyear), aircraft manufacturers (Cessna and Boeing).....I fought tooth and nail to make changes when they have done wrong and to get them to acknowledge and take responsibility for their actions.

I just do not understand why people have lost the ability to stand up and fight for what they believe is the right thing to do. It is frustrating to me that so few have the nerve to say "hang on...that is not right....things have to change"

With Discovery I could not rest til I got the truth of what was going on, it took alot of graft, phone calls and spending hours online discussing things with people in different time zones. With Goodyear their malpractice could easily have cost lives and very nearly did cost lives, same with Boeing and Cessna.

I am not someone who can sit and let things slide...changes can be brought about without breaking the law to get things noticed.

I don't know....times have obviously changed cos half of what we see happening in aquatics now would never have happened 20 years ago, yet people seemingly do not do anything or find reasons not to do anything...."its too hard"...."we're only one voice"....."who is going to listen to us"...."I don't have time"

I say try it, you might just be surprised at who will listen.

 

[Lajos_Detari]

Sometimes on forums like this, we come across outragious things going on and can feel powerless to do anything against it. One such incident happened back in 2008 when I ran a forum like this about cruise ships & cruising. The incident started with an email from my travel agent and took a little over a year to finally fix. I apologise in advance for the length of this story.

The email told me that a couple were on board an elderly cruise ship, Discovery, and that they were missing ports and sailing extremely slowly. Having asked the crew what the issue was, the couple had been stonewalled. These people, and the others on board, had paid upwards of 10k each for a Baltic exploration cruise. The ship was the sister of the original Love Boat built in 1971, single vessel operation that had, in previous years, been very successful.

I started tracking the ship on AIS. It was definitely not running well. I did a search of previous cruises, the slow running and missed ports seemed to be quite common. About 7 months prior to the current cruise a very well known and respected ocean liner historian had been aboard the ship and noted that as they left Manaus she had grazed a sandbar. From that point onwards she had been running on one engine. Red flags were starting to fly for me.

Next step was to check on her inspections. Looked on the MCA website, and low and behold she was only just passing her inspections...oily water in engineroom, poor state of maintenance etc. More red flags.

I contacted the company...no dice. Totally stonewalled.

By this time, after I had mentioned the engine issues on the forum, a steady stream of people joined the forum with their stories and photos of serious issues with the ship and the stonewalling from the company.

I had a friend in the MCA, gave them a call, explained the situation to see if they could shed light on it.

At this point what had started with an email snowballed into an international cat and mouse game.

For the next 6 months, the ship was operating under the scrutiny of the various countries that it visited across Scandinavia, Baltic and Mediterranean. I ended up on the BBC along with a lawyer from Which?, there were articles in all of the major UK media outlets. No-one could get anything from the company as to what was going on. I had literally hundreds of passengers, with photographic evidence all telling me how bad things were on the ship. The ship was inspected at every single port, barely passed inspection but as things stood they could not impound her...cos she passed....just scraped a pass.

The last port and where everything finally came to a head was Gibraltar. Being a British port the MCA had a chance to stop her. She was due to sail for Antarctica and the MCA could not allow that in her state. By now the flag registry, Bermuda, and Lloyds of London were involved. The nightmare finally ended when her captain bravely stood up to his bosses and refused to take the ship any further until she had been repaired.

The repairs were done, she sailed for Antarctica, did one expedition cruise and her season ended abruptly in Ushuaia. The company fired the MD who had stonewalled everyone, financial malpractice was found and the company folded. The ship was sailed back to Italy, then India for scrapping.

As a direct result of that one email, the bar was raised on vessel inspections...no more barely passing, a ship either passed fully or it failed. Cruise lines were more regulated, their ships were inspected more often and companies with specialist ships and older ships were more tightly checked in all aspects, not just the state of the ship. Cruising in Antarctica and Arctic regions tightened their rules too meaning many older vessels were banned as a direct result of this one ship and her poor maintenance that had been hidden by her owners.

Everyone who sailed on the bad cruises received full refunds via the company's winding up administrators.

The moral to this......just cos you are only one voice on a forum, if there is something that is not right or needs changing....it can be done. Takes alot of work and sleepless nights but it can be done.

Great and good ending unlike the South Korean ferry captain who abandoned the ferry and responsible for the death of 250 high school students.

Sewol ferry: S Korea court gives captain life sentence for murder

An appeals court in South Korea finds the captain of the sunken Sewol ferry guilty of homicide and increases his sentence to life in jail.

www.google.com

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Great and good ending unlike the South Korean ferry captain who abandoned the ferry and responsible for the death of 250 high school students.

Sewol ferry: S Korea court gives captain life sentence for murder

An appeals court in South Korea finds the captain of the sunken Sewol ferry guilty of homicide and increases his sentence to life in jail.

www.google.com

And lets not forget the shambles surrounding Costa Concordia....which, incidently I was aboard 3 weeks before she hit the rocks at Giglio.

Back in 2008 when I first got involved in the Discovery debacle, I never dreamed that changes could or would be made, not just to the actual ship but worldwide. The changes made in ship inspections and the pass or fail rate was mindblowing. How one ship could lead so so much being done....and in the case of Discovery before lives were lost.

Accountability and punishments for those like the Korean ferry captain had been lessened by virtue that a captain of a ship was treated almost godlike, they could say and do no wrong, it was everyone elses fault. In the same way initially Schettino was treated as a hero with Concordia until people started looking closer and removing the aura of a captain being untouchable, peeling back the layers and exposing the ugly truth. The captain aboard Discovery took things into his own hands and pulled the plug, that was a brave and rare move. That could have been the end of his career.

There is a real lack of accountability in many industries...including the fish breeding farms who cut corners, exercise poor methodology and husbandry. So many do bad things that people get used to it, almost expect it...a shrug of the shoulders, "oh well, never mind".

If we stand by and allow bad practice to continue without speaking out, then we are effectively condoning that bad practice and perpetuating it.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Ok… still confused as to what you’re complaining about. This is a forum, and the whole purpose of is to discuss current events and to help people

 

[Caesar]

Ok… still confused as to what you’re complaining about. This is a forum, and the whole purpose of is to discuss current events and to help people

It's a response to the forums dialogue about the potential to have the American government ban the vast majority of animals in our hobby, and how there is little response that shows a willingness to fight it.

A demonstration that one person can make a difference.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

It's a response to the forums dialogue about the potential to have the American government ban the vast majority of animals in our hobby, and how there is little response that shows a willingness to fight it.

A demonstration that one person can make a difference.

Ohhh ok. I was very confused about what a cruise line story had to do with this.

I would personally be willing to fight it. Ain’t no one taking my fish away from me.

 

[Colin_T]

I'm sick and tired of fighting, been doing it most of my life and I have had enough. It gets to a point where the government doesn't give a crap about you and doesn't bother reading your letters. They just throw them in the bin and put lunatic next to your name.

 

[Deleted member 149562]

Ok… still confused as to what you’re complaining about. This is a forum, and the whole purpose of is to discuss current events and to help people

Since it is in the "General Chat" section, thus NOT about fish per se but the frustration surrounding people's lack of passion and conviction to make changes and to fight for what is right.

We can all sit back and express faux anger at the proposed legislation for the fish trade.....but too few actually care enough get off their backsides and try to do anything about it. And that is sad when you consider how many give the impression of being passionate fishkeepers.

You have no idea if anyone will listen to your argument unless you gather the evidence, spend time researching and then voice your opinions and objections in a constructive way.