Cruise ship sails straight into a monster storm, for second time this year
Passengers on Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas ship endured a choppy, stomach-churning ride this weekend as the Bermuda-bound cruise liner steered into Post-Tropical Cyclone Hermine.
The 16-deck Anthem is the same ship that suffered damage in February after sailing into hurricane-force winds and 30-foot waves off the coast of North Carolina.
The cruise liner's latest battle with stormy seas began Sunday afternoon, shortly after the Anthem departed from Bayonne, New Jersey.
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As the ship got caught in whipping winds and thrashing waves, passengers took to Twitter to complain of seasickness, constant swaying and flying dishes in the ship's restaurants.
Omar Torres, a spokesman for Royal Caribbean, said the Anthem's crew changed its course days before departure in an effort to avoid Post-Tropical Cyclone Hermine, figuring the storm would be west of where it wound up tracking.
Anthem of the Seas typically takes a southeast route to Bermuda. But with Hermine spinning up the Atlantic Coast, the crew opted to take a northeast route and then turn south toward Bermuda, Torres told Mashable.
"Our plan was to stay 240 nautical miles away from the storm," he said by phone.
However, over time the forecast was revised, and the ship wound up in the worst possible place: the right front quadrant of the storm, where winds are strongest.
Torres said the Anthem crew tried to prepare passengers for the turbulent waters, adopting strategies that it didn't have in place during the February storm.
Royal Caribbean sent each passenger a letter before departure that warned about the storm and described the crew's plan to avoid it. The captain also updated guests in a pre-departure announcement and throughout the journey to Bermuda.
The spokesman told Mashable that Anthem did not incur any damages from Hermine. He said the cruise ship docked in Bermuda less than two hours after its scheduled arrival time.
Mashable science editor Andrew Freedman contributed to this story.
Maria Gallucci was a Science Reporter at Mashable. She was previously the energy and environment reporter at International Business Times; features editor of Makeshift magazine; clean economy reporter for InsideClimate News; and a correspondent in Mexico City until 2011. Maria holds degrees in journalism and Spanish from Ohio University's Honors Tutorial College.
