Holland America Blog
Safety Officer
Holland America Blog Has Just Posted the Following:
And then the good ship Statendam sailed from Kodiak and headed for Yakutat Bay. It turned out to be an eventful ride. First the Bright Star alarm went off, indication a medical emergency in one of the guest cabins, and it turned out to be a real emergency. Sometime later the Captain came on the P.A system advising all of us that the Statendam had slowed down and we were waiting for a USCG Helicopter from Kodiak Air station to air lift the patient to hospital.* In the meantime the weather had taken a turn for the worse and wind and swell were increasing. This is normally not much of an issue for a Helicopter as long as the winds are not hurricane force and as long as the ship is able to maneuver in such a way that the pilot can find a nice balance between the helicopter speed, the wind velocity and the ships speed. Lift off can take place either from the bow or the stern and most of the time it is from the bow. This time the pilot opted for the stern. It is the pilot’s choice, as he/she has to make it happen.* The lift off went very well* and I like to think that I had a little positive voice in that as not three days earlier I had taken all the stake holders through a table top exercise about how to follow all the protocols for such an evolution. The patient is now in Anchorage and we all hope that a speedy recovery will take place. But the slowing down and the adverse weather were not good for maintaining schedule and thus the captain had to speed up to make up time and try to make the most of it for our visit to Hubbard Glacier.* We arrived a bit later than scheduled today but in principle it did not matter as it is still day light until late in the evening and thus there is no cut off time as far as that is concerned. Then we had a bit of […]
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And then the good ship Statendam sailed from Kodiak and headed for Yakutat Bay. It turned out to be an eventful ride. First the Bright Star alarm went off, indication a medical emergency in one of the guest cabins, and it turned out to be a real emergency. Sometime later the Captain came on the P.A system advising all of us that the Statendam had slowed down and we were waiting for a USCG Helicopter from Kodiak Air station to air lift the patient to hospital.* In the meantime the weather had taken a turn for the worse and wind and swell were increasing. This is normally not much of an issue for a Helicopter as long as the winds are not hurricane force and as long as the ship is able to maneuver in such a way that the pilot can find a nice balance between the helicopter speed, the wind velocity and the ships speed. Lift off can take place either from the bow or the stern and most of the time it is from the bow. This time the pilot opted for the stern. It is the pilot’s choice, as he/she has to make it happen.* The lift off went very well* and I like to think that I had a little positive voice in that as not three days earlier I had taken all the stake holders through a table top exercise about how to follow all the protocols for such an evolution. The patient is now in Anchorage and we all hope that a speedy recovery will take place. But the slowing down and the adverse weather were not good for maintaining schedule and thus the captain had to speed up to make up time and try to make the most of it for our visit to Hubbard Glacier.* We arrived a bit later than scheduled today but in principle it did not matter as it is still day light until late in the evening and thus there is no cut off time as far as that is concerned. Then we had a bit of […]
Click here to view the article.
