About Hurricane Lee

To hear the coverage of Hurricane Lee in the national media, you’d think the world was coming to an end. The storm has behaved mostly as forecast, and now that we have a fairly good idea of its timing I want to make what I feel is a fairly educated projection of how the storm might impact the current sailing of Escape on the itinerary we’ll be on three weeks from now.

Current Status

Norwegian Escape

Cruising Earth shows the ship position as I write this about 25 statute miles off the coast of Portland, Maine. It appears they are running behind schedule according to Vessel Finder. Map image from Cruising Earth:

It’s a grey day:

The current trip’s live blog on Cruise Critic has shown a lot of cloudy conditions, but things cleared out nicely yesterday afternoon in Newport. 

Hurricane Lee

Assumptions

It’s only fair you know the assumptions I’m working under before I get into my thoughts about what lies ahead for the passengers on the current sailing.

Itinerary

Though I don’t have the exact port arrival and departure times for this itinerary, the order of the ports is the same as it is on ours. So I make the assumption the scheduled port times are the same. (The first way I could be wrong: NCL could be able to scramble the port order — if the schedule in Bar Harbor, St John and Halifax could support them being done in reverse order it’s possible it could be done safely.)

Safety Assumptions

I make the assumption that the captain will not intentionally sail in tropical storm force or greater wind (34 knots or greater). The information I’ve been able to find indicates that’s where the motion of the ship becomes too great for passenger safety — it becomes uncomfortable before that.

I make the assumption it is safer for the ship to be at sea away from the cone of what will be a tropical storm by then than it will to ride out the storm tied to a pier.

Business Assumptions

I make the assumption there is no way for NCL to avoid some form of compensation for passengers on the current sailing. Barring the storm falling completely apart, I see no way the sailing is unaffected.

I make the assumption NCL would prefer not to have to compensate passengers on the next sailing, which would be delayed under some scenarios.

I make the assumption NCL pays higher port fees and may have to dock at a different location if they arrive to New York City late, leading to additional logistical challenges, direct expenses, and passenger compensation.

The Weather/Timing Constraints

Here are the two most important graphics, as I see them, for decision-making on this sailing.

The options as I see them

First, be aware I have no special knowledge or insider information. This is just my logical work-through of options, which is something I do because logistics is one of my main skill sets and this boils down to a business and logistics problem. The safety issue is clear: the ship cannot be inside the tropical storm force wind area at any time. 

Option 1: Reverse order of the remainder of the trip

Halifax Wednesday (probably late arrival, shortened time)  – St John Thursday – Bar Harbor Friday (Maybe)

This is the only way I see getting in all three ports and I consider it a bit risky, as the ship will by well north of Boston at 8pm Friday, probably clearing that area around sunrise Saturday, so having a very rough night with a few hours in tropical storm winds.

Option 2: Drop Halifax

Still risky, IMO, but less so. I think it ultimately doesn’t matter what they do before Thursday, but if they do make the St. John stop passengers may have a difficult night Friday into Saturday. Sailing time from St John to Boston at 23 knots is about 13-14 hours. So it’s doable, if Escape can maintain that speed for that long. At a more normal 16 knots, the time is closer to 19 hours, putting the ship rounding Cape Cod around sunset Friday. That would have them sailing through TS-force wind for a few hours overnight, if you average the earliest reasonable and most-likely lines. So long as maintaining 20+ knots is doable given the sea conditions and current mechanical condition of the ship, I’d say things are okay through Thursday.

Option 3: Drop the Canadian Ports

This is the option I spent the most time on, because it is the one that appeals most to the safety-conscious side of me. I also hadn’t seen the wind arrival time projection when I was talking about it last night on Cruise Critic. If they depart Bar Harbor tomorrow night, they avoid all risk of tropical storm force wind by sailing on south of NYC and making broad circles at sea between NYC and Washington DC. 

I don’t envy NCL or the Captain this decision. It’s easy to see, though, why they are keeping mostly mum about it, as they don’t yet have enough information. The best scenario (and from a weather observer’s perspective, the most likely one) is that Lee will slow down a few more hours and/or curve a bit further east. The more of either of those things that happens, the more option 2 improves as the preference. Not knowing their risk calculus (that is something I would consider proprietary), I can’t say where they would stand right now, but my guess is that’s where they would lean. Try to get in as much as they can, even if it means some uncomfortable but not unsafe hours.

Were I on board now, I’d be most comfortable with option 3 but expecting option 2. And I’ve probably spent more time considering it as an observer on land than I would have as a passenger — except that I’m part weather geek among everything else 🙂

Follow-up: The Decision Reached

According to a post on Cruise Critic about 6pm yesterday: 

Just got the bad news we have all been dreading. Due to the hurricane we are skipping Bar Harbor and going directly to St John tomorrow. From there it’s direct back to New York skipping Halifax. We cannot get a pier so we will sit in the inlet until likely Sunday morning. Too bad but completely understandable. Safety First!

Cruise Critic User Steelers0854