Why Cruise Ships Don't Sink — Transcript

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1. 0:00A massive category-three storm is bearing down  on the high seas, tearing through everything in
2. 0:05its path. The seas roil with huge waves,  boats bob up and down on the surface,
3. 0:09and fishermen pray to whatever Gods they  know to get them through the voyage safe.
4. 0:13And you’re aboard a giant cruise ship,  enjoying a lovely dinner! Maybe afterwards,
5. 0:18you’ll go down to the casino and try your luck.
6. 0:19Yes, cruise ships do seem like strange  little oasis in the middle of a sea storm.
7. 0:23But how do these massive boats  manage to survive bad weather?
8. 0:27It’s all in the design. When people buy  tickets on a cruise ship, they’re not just
9. 0:31buying recreation - they’re buying safety. They  want to know that all their needs will be taken
10. 0:35care of for the duration of the cruise, and that  includes ensuring that the passengers are safe.
11. 0:39So cruise ships are designed to withstand  all sorts of rough conditions - in a way
12. 0:43past ships couldn’t. During the heyday of  sea travel, it was fairly common for ships
13. 0:48to be lost at sea. Rough weather, a rogue  enemy ship, or a collision with an iceberg
14. 0:52could send the ship to a watery grave - with  most or all the passengers going with it.
15. 0:57So what changed?
16. 0:58Obviously, the most famous maritime  disaster of all time, the Titanic,
17. 1:02didn’t help. The sinking of the British  passenger ship the Lusitania only years
18. 1:06later at the hands of a German torpedo only  made it clearer - something needs to change.
19. 1:11These were both hardy ships, ocean liners that  were meant for long-distance travel. They could
20. 1:15head from one end of the Atlantic to another  in a single go - but that also meant they were
21. 1:20sacrificing maneuverability for strength. If  everything went right, they would be reliable,
22. 1:24but if something went awry, there would be very  little hope to save the voyage. The Ocean Liner
23. 1:29was a reliable ship - but it was replaced by  something better, and today only one Ocean
24. 1:33Liner remains in service. The Queen Mary 2 is  more of a relic of an older age of sea travel.
25. 1:38And it’s been replaced with a ship with a much  higher rate of survival in case of emergency.
26. 1:43The cruise ship is typically made of lighter  material than an ocean liner, and they can be made
27. 1:48to be much bigger. In fact, the Titanic was only  883 feet long, while the largest cruise ship today
28. 1:53- Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas - is almost  1,200 feet long. While ocean liners focus on being
29. 1:59sturdy, the average cruise ship has some hidden  secrets inside that make it much more seaworthy.
30. 2:04So what’s hiding inside these floating cities?
31. 2:06Cruise ships are often…ridiculous. Only a small  portion of the ship is below the waterline, and on
32. 2:12top of the ship is a massive multi-level complex  often containing thousands of staterooms, dozens
33. 2:17of restaurants, and countless rooms featuring  opportunities for recreation. It towers into the
34. 2:22sky, looking very top-heavy. Yet for those people  sailing through a storm, their cruise experience
35. 2:27will be largely uninterrupted! Outdoor activities  might be cancelled, and the outdoor decks might
36. 2:31be closed to keep people away from the railings  during rough waters, but people on the inside
37. 2:35will be able to enjoy their food, activities,  and sleep with only some moderate turbulence.
38. 2:40And a lot goes into making sure it stays that way.
39. 2:42The design of the ship actually  works in favor of keeping the
40. 2:45ship afloat. The top-heavy nature means  the ship is pulling down on the water,
41. 2:50providing a balance to the buoyancy that  pushes it upwards. It’s a tricky balance,
42. 2:55and a big part of this is the ship’s center  of gravity. While the goal of the design of
43. 2:59a ship is to keep the center of gravity in the  middle, that’s not always possible. Ships have a
44. 3:03lot going into them, and the engines and machines  that keep it running weigh a lot more. That means
45. 3:08the bottom of the ship will be heavier than the  top half, no matter how tall the top half looks.
46. 3:12And it’s all about balancing that.
47. 3:13If a ship is too bottom-heavy, it’s likely  to keep sinking. If a ship is too top-heavy,
48. 3:18it’ll be more unstable - which is  less dangerous than a ship sinking,
49. 3:21but nothing ruins a cruise faster than it toppling  over on its side. So designing a cruise ship is an
50. 3:27extensive process that involves carefully  balancing out its weight distribution and
51. 3:31figuring out exactly how much you can build  on top of the massive ship. The machinery
52. 3:35being at the bottom keeps the ship’s center of  gravity low, ensuring stability in the water.
53. 3:40Stabilizer fins keep the ship from rolling  too easily. And the ship is equipped with GPS
54. 3:45devices and other modern navigation systems to  ensure it avoids obstacles and remains stable.
55. 3:49But what happens if an obstacle is unavoidable?
56. 3:52Cruise ships will take detours  to avoid storms when possible,
57. 3:55but sometimes a storm comes on hard and fast.  That’s why the ship relies on far more than its
58. 4:01center of gravity to stay afloat. The design  of the bottom of the ship has round edges,
59. 4:05which makes it a lot easier for it to roll on  the water and then restore its initial position.
60. 4:09It also has a number of ballast tanks to keep it  stable, which is something earlier ships lacked.
61. 4:14These water-filled tanks provide additional  stability and distribute the load evenly.
62. 4:19So what is it like surviving  a storm on a cruise ship?
63. 4:22Surprisingly, fine! No system is going to be  able to completely keep you from feeling the
64. 4:27impact of a raging storm outside, but as  long as you stay within the cruise ship,
65. 4:30you’re going to be fine. People have described  turbulence, but this is more like mild swaying
66. 4:35than the violent nausea-inducing shaking  you might have felt on an airplane or a
67. 4:39much less seaworthy ship. In severe storms,  the ship may stop to let the storm pass,
68. 4:44but overall cruise ships can handle harsh  weather in a way older ships could not.
69. 4:48And this does more than just  save vacations - it saves lives!
70. 4:52Cruise ships are strong, but they’re not  invincible. They often have less hull strength
71. 4:56than ocean liners, but better radar to avoid  obstacles like icebergs. If they were to hit one,
72. 5:01the odds are that it would rip through  the hull and cause serious damage to
73. 5:04the ship. But not all disasters are created  equal, and even in the worst-case scenario,
74. 5:08cruise ships are better equipped to  survive a disaster than the their cousins.
75. 5:12Let’s look at a tale for two disasters.
76. 5:14Everyone knows the story - the Titanic hit an  iceberg and sank, and then Jack and Rose didn’t
77. 5:19try to fit two people on that one board. But  how much do we know about what actually went
78. 5:23wrong with the Titanic? When it hit that  iceberg, it ripped a hole in the hull of
79. 5:27the ship under the water level, at least three  hundred feet long, and that sent freezing cold
80. 5:32water flooding into the base of the ship. As  this primarily affected the back of the ship,
81. 5:36it eventually sent it tilting upwards, leading  to a massive breakage and making it much harder
82. 5:42to evacuate. This led to a death of over  1,500 people, one of the worst peacetime
83. 5:46maritime disasters of all time. Of course, the  biggest culprit in the death rate was the lack
84. 5:51of lifeboats - it was unsinkable, after all.  But the design of the Titanic didn’t help.
85. 5:55Now, let’s look at a modern-day equivalent.
86. 5:58The cruise ship industry is considered much  safer than the old-timey seafaring industry,
87. 6:03but that didn’t help the residents of the Costa  Concordia off Italy’s coast in 2013. Carrying
88. 6:07over four thousand people on board in 2012,  it was just kicking off a seven-day cruise
89. 6:12when it struct a rock reef and tore a 16-foot  gash into the ship’s hull around 25 feet below
90. 6:18sea level - a very similar blow to the one that  took the Titanic down to a watery grave. The ship
91. 6:23began flooding, the engines and generators  went offline, and the ship began to sink.
92. 6:26But what happened next was very different.
93. 6:28The ship began leaning heavily to its side, and  sank much more slowly. This allowed the crew to
94. 6:33begin a hasty evacuation process, and thanks to  a suitable supply of lifeboats, they were able
95. 6:38to evacuate the passengers over a six-hour  period. Thirty-four people ultimately died,
96. 6:42but most of the deaths were caused by the ship  tilting and passengers falling into the water.
97. 6:47Three people were even rescued from the ship  over twenty-four hours after it hit the rock,
98. 6:51as the ship was sinking very  slowly thanks to its design
99. 6:54and well-distributed ballast tanks. The  Costa Concordia was ultimately scrapped,
100. 6:59and it’s one of the worst maritime disasters  of the 21st century, but it was nowhere near
101. 7:03as bad in terms of loss of life as the  maritime disasters of the 20th century.
102. 7:08So are cruise ships foolproof?
103. 7:10The answer is…almost! The Costa Concordia  was one of the only total losses of a cruise
104. 7:16ship in recent memory. Most of the worst  maritime disasters in the 21st century are
105. 7:20of passenger ferries, and while the Costa  Concordia was certainly the most expensive,
106. 7:24its loss of life was dwarfed by disasters  involving much smaller boats. Cruise ships
107. 7:29are designed to survive intense storms while  minimizing its impact on the people inside,
108. 7:33and in the event of a hull-breaching  disaster, it has enough safety features
109. 7:37to allow time for a safe evacuation. While  we have no evidence of what would happen in
110. 7:42the event of a military attack like the one  on the Lusitania - and we hopefully never
111. 7:46will - the modern cruise ship seems designed  to give its passengers an easy and safe ride.
112. 7:50Now they only have to worry about a few other  things, like viruses spreading on board - be
113. 7:55they norovirus or Covid. Plus, there’s always  the risk that the power could go out and leave
114. 7:59you stranded on the open water for several days  as the toilets overflow and the food runs out,
115. 8:04like in the infamous “Poop Cruise” on Carnival  Sunset. Plus, you never know who you’re going
116. 8:09to be seated next to at dinner - and if that  one guy tells you one more anecdote about him
117. 8:13yelling at Starbucks baristas, you may just wish  for the ship to sink to the bottom of the ocean.
118. 8:18Want to know more about the most infamous  ship disaster of all time? Check out “The
119. 8:22Sinking of the Titanic (Hour by  Hour)” or watch this video instead.