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Captain Accused of Leaving Passengers on Sinking Ship

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Everyone on board the cruise ship Oceanos was safe and accounted for Monday, but survivors angrily accused the captain of taking one of the first rescue helicopters to safety and leaving them on board the sinking liner.

“We had to take over the ship,” said Terry Lester, who worked as a comedian on the ship. “If it hadn’t been for the entertainers, a lot of people would have drowned.”

The ship’s entertainers said they guided rescue vessels by radio after Greek Capt. Yiannis Avranas abandoned the bridge, leaving passengers--including women, children, aged and the infirm--to their fate in a rough sea.

The 571 people aboard the ship were rescued in a dramatic operation Sunday that was completed only 90 minutes before the ship sank a mile from South Africa’s Indian Ocean coast near the village of Coffee Bay.

Passengers praised rescue efforts by the South African military and tour company officials aboard the ship but expressed outrage over the behavior of captain and the crew.

“It was disgusting,” said Julian Russell, 29, a Briton working on the ship as a magician. “The captain, safety officer and other senior crew got off as quickly as they could, so there was nobody to show us what to do during the rescue.”

Crew members took the ship’s only two motorized lifeboats, passengers said, leaving tourists to try to launch regular lifeboats. Also, many complained that no announcements were made during the 12-hour ordeal.

“They left us in the lurch,” passenger Kevin Ellis said of the crew. “They knew the ship was going to sink and didn’t say a thing.”

Passengers said Russell and his fellow entertainers took charge, guiding them to the helicopter winches that hoisted about 170 people aboard the choppers in a dangerous mercy mission.

Musician Moss Hills, 35, spent hours on the sharply listing deck helping elderly passengers into wildly swaying helicopter harnesses.

“There were so many times we thought the ship was going over,” Hills said. “We were hanging on for dear life.”

He said the captain was the second person lifted off by helicopter. Other passengers said that of the 16 people aboard the first helicopter, 11 were ship’s officers.

In Athens, the ship’s owners defended the crew’s conduct.

“The fact that the operation was so successful, with all on board saved, proves that the rescue plan was the correct one,” said Alevizos Klaoudatos, spokesman for Epirotiki Lines S.A., in a statement.

Capt. Avranas defended his decision to leave the ship.

“I don’t care what these people say about me,” the captain told reporters Sunday night. “I am separated from my family, who were rescued by one of the other ships, and I have lost my own ship. What more can they want?”

While admitting to leaving “quite a few” people on board, he said he went to supervise operations from ashore.

“When I order ‘Abandon ship,’ it doesn’t matter what time I leave,” Avranas said in a separate interview with ABC-TV. “Abandon is for everybody. If some people like to stay, they can stay.”

Hills, the musician, said he first realized the ship was in trouble when crew members in life jackets stormed up from the engine room Saturday night.

“We didn’t know what was going on. . . . There were no announcements, no sirens, nothing,” he said.

Last off the ship was Robin Boltman, a comedian and magician who manned the radio on the bridge to coordinate rescue efforts.

“They were bloody heroes,” one passenger said of the entertainers.

Rescuers said Monday that the search for survivors had ended since all aboard had been accounted for.

“The last remaining crew member missing from the Oceanos has been located, and the search for survivors has been called off,” said Ian Hunter, managing director of the tour operators who chartered the ship for a season of Indian Ocean cruises.

“You will agree that a miracle has happened here,” Hunter’s colleague Paul Levine told a news conference.

Passing ships picked up about 400 survivors from lifeboats.

South African Transport Minister Piet Welgemoed announced a maritime inquiry into the sinking of the 7,554-ton ship in seas with 24-foot waves.

The Oceanos, carrying mostly South African passengers, left East London on Saturday for Durban and began taking on water Saturday night.

Military officials said they did not know why the ship sank but said its proximity to the coast suggested that it may have hit a reef off the dangerous “Wild Coast.” Avranas said he believed that a piston in the engine room broke, knocking a hole in the hull.

Among people familiar with maritime traditions, Avranas’ behavior was viewed as gross neglect of his primary responsibility, the safety of his passengers and crew.

Frank O. Braynard, a maritime historian and curator of the American Merchant Marine Museum at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at King’s Point, N.Y., called the decision of the captain to leave the ship “completely wrong.”

“There’s no excuse. It’s cowardice of the first order,” Braynard said.

The captain is not expected to go down with the ship but is expected to be the last to leave, Braynard said.

“It’s very much an accepted tradition that the captain is responsible for the lives of everyone on board,” he said.

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The sinking of Oceanos

Photographs, some taken by survivors, document the cruise ship sinking off Southern Africa’s eastern coast in August 1991.

The 500-foot long Oceanos was first launched in 1952. It is photographed here leaving the port of Piraeus, Greece.

The Oceanos' final voyage was a seven-day sail along the South African shore from Durban to Cape Town and back again. Here, vacationers enjoy the pool deck early in the cruise. The ship, which had 571 passengers when it started sinking, had seven decks, two lounges, a dining room, and eight lifeboats.

Passenger Karen Winter photographed on the pier in the town of East London, just moments before the ship’s final sail in 1991. A storm was building but the captain had a schedule to keep. Karen is among the survivors interviewed in the Dateline NBC documentary.

Dinner in the ship’s Byzantine Dining Room the night of the storm was fraught with nervous laughter. As the ship lurched through massive swells, passengers struggled to keep the food from sliding off their tables.

After dinner, passengers stumbled to the lounge for the end-of-cruise show. Unbeknownst to them, the ship’s hull had fractured below decks and seawater was pouring in to the generator room. Soon, the Oceanos lost power and the lounge plunged into darkness.

Most of the ship’s officers and many of the crew began abandoning ship, leaving cruise director Lorraine Betts and her entertainment staff to tend to almost 400 passengers. In this photograph, passengers are starting to line up for the lifeboats.

Lifeboat No. 2, full of women and children, is lowered into an angry sea. Wives inside recall the trauma of saying goodbye to their husbands.

Passengers wait out the night on the rear deck, uncertain how or if they will be rescued.

As the storm breaks at dawn, a bridge-level view of the sunrise is photographed. The photographer is Moss Hills, a guitarist on the cruise, who later that day helps run the airlift rescue.

Two rescue helicopters from Durban were the first to arrive. Navy Diver Paul Whiley, seen here hanging above the deck, remembers the shock of seeing nearly 240 faces beneath him.

Passengers cling to the top rail as they line up for the airlift.

A member of the crew signals the chopper from the pool deck. Behind, all the deck chairs and tables sit in a mass against the bottom rail.

Midday, the sea spills over the bow of Oceanos.

About 2:00 p.m., the Oceanos begins its vertical descent. The Oceanos thrust her stern into the air and slid nose first into the sea.

After ramming into the sea floor, the Oceanos slipped silently beneath the waves. Towards the end, passengers had to jump into the sea.

After jumping off the ship, Magician Julian Butler (left) helped save passengers and crew by pulling them into inflatable dinghies. Here, he’s in a chopper headed back to shore.

Piet Niemand (left, laying his head against his fiancée’s shoulder) and his son Peter (sitting behind) gather with survivors at the rescue staging ground. Father and son, who’d each helped with the rescue, had been separated during the airlift and tearfully reunited on land.

The ship’s captain, Yiannis Avranas, was one of the first rescued in the airlift. Avranas declined Dateline NBC’s request for an interview, but after the incident, explained that given the lack of communications on board, he felt he could better run the rescue from shore.

For his actions, Navy Diver Paul Whiley received South Africa’s highest medal of honor, an Honoris Crux Gold. It was only the sixth awarded in South African history.

Lifeboat No. 5, salvaged, is now part of an exhibit at the East London Museum in South Africa.

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MTS Oceanos: When vigilante action saved 220 souls from tragedy

Guest writer: daniel thomas.

Travellers usually relax knowing that cruise companies operate with stringent safety measures. But what if staff don’t follow protocol when disaster strikes? This is the story of MTS Oceanos. Brace yourselves

When Moss and Tracy Hills noticed the crew of MTS Oceanos hastily packing up their personal effects and slinging on their lifejackets, something was clearly – and seriously – wrong. The married couple, both musicians from Zimbabwe, had embarked upon the MTS Oceanos as cruise entertainers several days prior, where the start of an ill-fated final voyage to Durban, South Africa, had unravelled like a bad omen. An anonymous bomb threat had delayed departure from the UK’s East London port, while a seasick organist had disrupted a wedding ceremony held onboard. The bride very nearly didn’t wear white.

However, worst of all was the weather. Conditions had been grim for days, significantly worsening by August 3, with 40-knot winds and 30-foot swells assailing the French-built, Greek-owned luxury cruise liner as it put to sea. The sail-away party was moved from the open deck to the cruise lounge, while progressively harsher weather caused several accidents during dinner service. As diners grimaced upon watching their meal disappear from the waiter’s grasp and onto the thick carpet, many felt the voyage was cursed. Still, at first, it seemed that there was no cause for alarm.

The Oceanos had weathered similar conditions before and had a 250-strong crew to support its complement of 581 passengers. Yiannis Avranas, the ship’s captain, had thirty years of experience at sea, twenty of which serving as an officer.

Nobody could have predicted that it would be the Hills, among others, who would help save the lives of everyone onboard.

MTS Oceanos: Prelude to disaster

Night fell, and as the ship moved along the Wild Coast of the Eastern Cape Province, south of Coffee Bay, the Hills began noticing signs of flooding and panicked behaviour from the crew around 8.45pm.

Other eyewitnesses reported similar incidents across the ship in the subsequent half hour. Finally, at approximately 9.30pm, a muffled explosion was heard in the engine room.

In later investigations, a general condition of neglect and unaddressed technical issues emerged. More seriously, non-return valves in the waste disposal system had been scrapped but not replaced.

Worryingly, a 10-inch hole had been left in the bulkhead between the engine room and the sewerage tank. This led to rapid flooding when an unfitted pipe burst from the impact of a strong wave. The engine room flooded, and the generators shorted out, cutting power to the ship.

Worse was to come. Sea water coursed uncontrollably through the gap in the bulkhead, filling the waste tank and the lack of non-return valves sent the water up the main drainage pipes, flooding every outlet connected to the system. The ship was stricken and, once the engines stopped, she began to list alarmingly.

Passengers had by this time gathered in the lounge for the evening show, but they soon began to realise that something was dangerously amiss. Ships often churn about in choppy seas, but a constant slant to one side could only spell trouble. Yet, the crew were largely mute about what was going on.

Thank God for entertainment

The crew and officers began their preparations to abandon ship, starting as they meant to continue – sloppily. Their conduct provided evidence showcasing a blatant disregard for maritime procedure. Lower deck portholes were left unsecured while many passengers were left uninformed of the flooding several hours after the ship’s doomsday had started.

In the face of this abdication of responsibility, salvation for the vessel’s passengers would come from an unlikely source – the ship’s musicians and entertainers.

Moss and Tracy began to investigate any suspected flooding, along with Julian Butler; a stage magician and comedian. Butler and Moss entered the lower decks, below the waterline, to find a sealed bulkhead door and further signs of serious flooding.

Informing Lorraine Betts, the cruise director, of what they’d seen, they watched the crew organise lifeboat departures of women, children and themselves.

Senior officers were frantically piling onto the boats, after failing to issue a general alarm. The captain maintained that the ship was not in danger of sinking.

The Hills confirmed with video evidence that the captain and officers were lying about the condition of the Oceanos, but they had no time to confront anyone. Evacuation of the lifeboats had begun while the Hills, Betts, Butler, comedian Robin Boltman, and other entertainers and cruise staff (including the primarily Filipino kitchen and cabin crew), pitched in to assist.

Amid the exodus of the crew and the absence of effective on-deck leadership, the entertainers and cooks worked hard to minimise panic and maintain order among passengers.

Leaving passengers stranded onboard

Boltman played music in the lounge to calm the passengers, alongside cabaret performer Alvin Collinson. In Collinson’s telling, at one point, he began playing “American Pie”, only to realise that his next line would be “this’ll be the day that I die” – and, with this, he hastily switched to a different song.

The evacuation proved difficult and unsafe. Besides dealing with unsecured lifeboats, the dark and the hazardous conditions hampered progress, while jammed emergency exits and a lack of trained personnel onboard made for rough going.

To make matters worse, the lifeboats that had been launched by the officers - only partially full in their hurry to abandon ship – left 220 people stranded onboard after the last boat had departed.

By this point, Betts, the Hills, and several other passengers had virtually assumed total authority on-deck. They decided to try and access the bridge. With no assistance from onboard maritime professionals, 220 souls now depended on the vigilante action of the ship’s entertainers.

Operating the radio phone, Moss managed to successfully contact nearby vessels, and a rescue effort began. Passing ships broadcast the MTS Oceanos' coordinates far and wide, while Moss coordinated with Captain Detmar of a nearby container ship - Nedlloyd Mauritius.

Upon telling Captain Detmar that he was a guitarist with zero maritime experience, Moss recalls hearing a short pause on the phone before the “extremely supportive” captain came back, relaying technical advice.

The captain bails

Three hours after trouble kicked-off, a flight of helicopters - 13 Pumas from the South African Defence Force – arrived to commence an airlift operation. Multiple eyewitnesses, including the Hills, report Captain Avranas boarding one of the first choppers, long before the vast majority of the passengers had been rescued.

The captain would later insist he’d only left to better plan the evacuation. Naturally, his claims were met with an uproar of criticism and scathing judgement.

Even with the assistance of two South African naval divers, the airlifts were no easier for the Hills than loading the lifeboats. Passengers were sent sliding across the steeply pitched deck, or worse still, injured in collisions with the ship’s hull. All the while, the Oceanos was sinking lower and lower.

At one point, an inflatable boat – crewed by Butler and a diver – was dispatched to rescue a number of frightened people who, out of sheer desperation, had jumped into the ocean. But Moss and Tracy met the task, setting up evacuation stations on both the fore and aft decks, tying ropes to make improvised handrails, strapping passengers into harnesses and organising them into queues.

Somehow, eventually, they made it. Every single passenger and crew member was evacuated by either air or sea. Despite the calamity, the Oceanos did not suffer a single casualty.

Moss and Tracy Hills were among the last to be evacuated from the ship, alongside the Filipino cooks, following one of modern maritime history’s most successful rescue operations.

The MTS Oceanos finally flounders

At 3.30pm on August 4, having been abandoned to her fate following the rescue of her passengers, the MTS Oceanos finally sank beneath the waves. Her stern turned to the sky amid a crucible of pounding waves and turquoise waters, coming to rest nearly 100 metres beneath the raging Agulhas Current.

Exhausted and disorientated, survivors of the doomed cruise ship stepped out blinking into the spotlight of the international press. An American news crew had captured the dramatic final moments of the Oceanos while the sinking was reported from Johannesburg to Baltimore.

The Hills were reunited with their 15-year-old daughter, Amber, and hailed by passengers and their fellow entertainers for their efforts.

Moss would briefly become something of a minor regional celebrity, the civilian musician who had helped save hundreds of lives at sea. A South African newspaper ran an editorial cartoon depicting the sinking, captioned: “Attention, attention- this is your lead guitarist speaking”.

The Hills eventually moved to Liverpool, where Moss would later become a cruise director himself.

The aftermath

Avranas, on the other hand, would be pilloried – condemned as the captain who abandoned his crew, his passengers and his ship – on the testimony of multiple unrelated eyewitnesses.

Investigated by the South African Ministry of Transport and found negligent by a Greek inquiry, the captain was never held personally liable for the disaster or charged with any crime. His employer, Epirotiki Line, later assigned him as captain of a ferry until his retirement.

The sinking of the Oceanos was certainly a disaster – but not a tragedy. For those passengers abandoned by Captain and crew , profound gratitude was offered to the South African authorities for their prompt rescue – but the heroes were undoubtedly the band of quick-thinking entertainers.

As they say, not all heroes wear capes, or – in this case – cruise uniforms.

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Oceanos Sinking Raises Questions On Cruises' Safety

The recent images of the cruise ship Oceanos taking a nose dive into the storm-tossed Indian Ocean off South Africa made all of us shudder.

And if you are booked on an upcoming cruise, you may well be asking "Could it happen to me?"

It's not an unreasonable question. Just how safe is cruising?

As might be expected, the International Council of Cruise Lines, a trade association representing many of the world's major cruise lines, says cruising is quite safe.

The answer, however, is somewhat more complex. When choosing a cruise, travelers should be aware of two important safety factors:

-- The newest cruise ships generally are equipped with the most modern safety devices. Older cruise ships - and many of the vessels sailing from U.S. ports were built 20 or more years ago - are not required to adhere to all the latest international safety requirements.

-- Cruise ships that sail regularly from U.S. ports - about 100 vessels - must undergo frequent and stringent U.S. Coast Guard inspections. While most of the world's cruise fleet (about 250 ships) is inspected regularly, the standards applied elsewhere may not be as strict as those the Coast Guard requires.

In addition, it's important to note that sailing on a new ship which has passed thorough inspections doesn't necessarily assure a safe voyage. Human nature plays its own important role. No one can predict how a ship's crew and its officers will react if disaster does strike. A faltering crew could put any rescue operation in jeopardy.

"It's the people who make a difference," says a marine safety expert who did not want to be identified.

In testimony before Congress last year and again in May, the International Council of Cruise Lines argued that "cruising today is, as it should be, the safest mode of transportation."

This conclusion is based largely on the performance record of its 17 member lines, which operate more than 70 large cruise ships.

From 1970 through 1989, the ships carried almost 30 million passengers, and no one died as the result of a collision, fire or other disaster. During the same period, only two deaths are reported to have occurred on other non-member cruise ships sailing from the United States.

About four million Americans a year take a cruise, making up about 80 percent of the international cruise market.

Epirotiki Lines, which operated the Oceanos, is a member of the organization as are such famous cruise lines as Carnival, Cunard, Holland America, Norwegian Cruise Line, Royal Cruise Line, Royal Viking Line, Premier, Princess and Royal Caribbean.

Nevertheless, the plight of the Oceanos, in which all passengers and crew survived its Aug. 4 sinking, is a reminder that problems at sea can and do continue to happen - and often with life-threatening potential.

In May, two cruise ships, the Island Princess (Princess Cruises) and the Regent Sea (Regency Cruises), collided in Alaskan waters.

No major injuries were reported, but the Island Princess had to cancel the remainder of its voyage because of damage to several cabins.

In 1989, a Russian cruise ship, the Maxim Gorky, struck an ice floe north of the Arctic Circle and sank. All 900 passengers and crew were rescued, but some passengers suffered broken bones and hypothermia.

The United States is a major port nation, with about 100 large passenger ships sailing from U.S. ports on the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts and from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Coast Guard is responsible for port checks, and it inspects ships that depart regularly from this country as often as every three months.

Coast Guard inspectors look for a wide variety of potential problems ranging from a vessel's structural soundness to whether passageways are wide enough to permit rapid evacuation of all passengers.

Fires are a recurring menace at sea. Among the Coast Guard's major concerns are fire safety procedures on cruise ships, and crews typically are put through stringent fire and abandon-ship drills.

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The ship was reported to be in very poor condition when it set sail for Durban on its final voyage, and was in a state of neglect, with loose hull plates, check valves stripped for repair parts after a recent trip, and a 10 cm (4 in) hole in the “watertight” bulkhead between the generator and sewage tank.

• 1 Final Voyage
• 4 Final Moments
• 5 The Wreck

Final Voyage

On 3 August 1991, the Oceanos set out from East London, South Africa, and headed to Durban. She headed into 40-knot winds and 9 m ( 30 ft ) swells.

Usually, there would have been a “ sail-away ” party on deck with musicians and British entertainers Moss Hills and Tracy Hills.

However, due to the rough sea conditions, this was held inside in the Four Seasons lounge; most passengers chose to stay in their cabins.

The storm worsened as the evening progressed and when the first sitting of dinner was served, the waiters could hardly carry the trays of food without dropping something.

Eventually, the ship was rolling about from side to side so badly that crockery and cutlery began sliding off the tables and potted plants were falling over.

At approximately 21:30 UTC+2, while off the Wild Coast of the Transkei, a muffled explosion was heard and the Oceanos lost her power following a leak in the engine room’s sea chest.

The ship’s chief engineer reported to Captain Yiannis Avranas that water was entering the hull and flooding the generator room.

The generators were shut down because the rising water would have short circuited them. The ship was left adrift.

The water steadily rose, flowing through the 10 cm (3.9 in) hole in the bulkhead and into the sewage waste disposal tank. Without check valves in the holding tank, the water coursed through the main drainage pipes and rose through the ship, spilling out of showers, toilets, and waste disposal units.

Realizing the fate of the ship, the crew fled in panic, neglecting the standard procedure of closing the lower deck portholes. No alarm was raised.

Passengers remained ignorant of the events taking place until they witnessed the first signs of flooding in the lower decks.

At this stage, eyewitness accounts reveal that many of the crew, including Captain Avranas, were already packed and ready to depart, seemingly unconcerned with the safety of the passengers.

Nearby vessels responded to the ship’s SOS and were the first to provide assistance.

The South African Navy along with the South African Air Force launched a seven-hour mission in which 16 helicopters were used to airlift the passengers and crew to the nearby settlements of The Haven and Hole in the Wall ( 32°2′0″S 29°6′36″E ), about 10 km (6.2 mi) south of Coffee Bay.

Of the 16 rescue helicopters, 13 were South African Air Force Pumas, nine of which hoisted 225 passengers off the deck of the sinking ship.

All 571 people on board were saved. Moss Hills organized the orderly evacuation of passengers by the helicopters and is generally acknowledged as the leading hero of the event.

Hills and fellow entertainer Julian Butler directed the efforts of the entertainment staff, which included Tracy Hills and Robin Boltman, to assist the passengers. Butler, Hills and Hills’ wife Tracy were among the last five to be rescued from the ship.

Women and children were given priority when loading the lifeboats.[citation needed] Oceanos’ cruise director Lorraine Betts ordered women and children to come through to the remaining boats after many officers and crew abandoned ship.

Later on in the disaster, a severe starboard list rendered the remaining lifeboats useless; the remaining passengers had to be airlifted onto South African Air Force helicopters by means of a safety harness. Betts again insisted that women and children be rescued first.

Final Moments

The following day, at approximately 15:30 UTC+2, the Oceanos rolled over onto her side and sank by the bow, eventually striking sand 90 m ( 300 ft ) below the surface while more than 60 m ( 200 ft ) of her stern remained aloft a few minutes before also slipping below, coming to rest at 32.12093°S 29.12029°E on her starboard side almost at right angles to the coastline, with her bow facing seaward.

The last 15 minutes of the ship’s sinking was captured on video and broadcast by ABC News.

The Ocean’s wreck lies at a depth of between 92 m (302 ft) and 97 m (318 ft), about 5 km (3.1 mi) offshore.

Divers have visited the wreck site, but currents are strong and there are many sharks in the area, so diving is difficult.

Photographs taken in 2002 show that the bridge section of Oceanos has collapsed.

I am deeply passionate about history and am constantly fascinated by the rich and complex stories of the past. As the editor-in-chief of learning-history.com, I have the opportunity to share this passion with a wide audience through the creation and distribution of engaging and informative content about historical events, persons, and cultures. Whether it’s through writing articles and blog posts or creating videos or podcasts, I strive to bring the past to life in a way that is both accurate and enjoyable. My expertise in history, combined with my strong writing and communication skills, allows me to effectively communicate complex historical concepts and make them accessible and interesting to a wide range of readers. I am truly grateful for the opportunity to share my love of history with others through my work on learning-history.com.

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The Sinking of the Oceanos, 1991

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjTuAV036yY

I’ve been up most of the night learning about this  kind of fascinating, but mostly terrifying  account from 22 years ago of the cruise ship Oceanos sinking off the coast of South Africa .

Much like the recent Costa Concordia , the Captain abandoned his ship and left the passengers and most of the crew to fend for themselves, however unlike the more recent disaster, not a single one of the 571 passengers and crew on-board actually died from the incident.

Playing a key part in the evacuation of the ship’s passengers was Moss Hills, who worked on the Oceanos as  the lead guitar player,  and it’s just incredible to read his account of realizing that something didn’t seem right, then finding that many of the crew and officers were gathering personal belongings without a word to the passengers, then discovering that the ship was in fact taking on water, and finally working with Lorraine Betts, the cruise director, to coordinate an evacuation first into the remaining lifeboats … and then also via airlift by the South Africa Air Force once they discovered that because between some boats being unavailable and the crew abandoned ship only half-filling another, there wasn’t enough room on the rest for everyone who was left…

At one point he talks about having to  lash himself to the railing  in order to help people into the harness for the helicopters, and photos show pictures of the deck at a 45 degree angle … it truly is a wonder that nobody ended up falling into the sea that night.

Oh wait –  one person did!  And yet one of the rescuers was able to dive in and save him, too!

This 6-part series from NBC called  Miracle on the Wild Coast   tells the entire story and includes interviews with a number of the passengers,  the guy who fell from the harness into the sea, and   of course, the entertainment staff heroes who led the rescue effort in lieu of actual leadership.

The Captain was quoted later as saying,  “When I order abandon ship, it doesn’t matter what time I leave. Abandon is for everybody. If some people like to stay, they can stay.”

It’s amazing how a story can make you both lose and gain faith in humanity at the same time.

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Sinking of Oceanos : Survivor’s Accounts

• February 12, 2022

Auto, Aviation & Transportation

“It was August 3, 1991 when Rosemary Roe saw the dishes slipping on the table during dinner. ′′ The lights went out and the ship got an unusual inclination, but none of the crew advised us, he says in telephone communication from Ireland. ′′Only entertainment staff, singers and waiters helped us later. Most crew members left first with lifeboats “.

Michael O ‘ Mahoney, a passenger remembers at least 30 crew members got on the first boat, while the captain left on a helicopter while passengers were still on deck. ′′I never saw the captain among us helping, he says.”

MTS  Oceanos  was a French-built and Greek-owned cruise ship that sank in 1991.

None of the 571 passengers drowned. The international and some Greek media condemned the attitude of Captain Yiannis Avranas. And he did not lighten his position after the accident when he told a foreign television station: ′′ The ship’s abandonment applies to everyone. No matter what time I leave”. On August 7, a news report emerged with the title: ′′Battle for the critical hours “.

On the front page was a Kostas Mitropoulos cartoon that lampooned the Captain, it read: ′′Where to take you captain?…the helicopter pilot asked him as he rescued him from the sinking ship named ′′Ocean of failures”.

Christos Nikolaou did not know what was said about him and his colleagues at the time. We meet him in Piraeus, where he lives after his retirement. The crew called him a ′′secretary”. He speaks five foreign languages, originally from Kasos, but was born in Egypt. He was 46 years old.

′′We were preparing to eat when the first mechanic warned us. He said the export to the electric generators had been opened by a surge and water was pouring in. Within eight minutes I closed the waterproof doors. In between, however, the first engineer was terrified. He says he lowered the switches, stopped the power generators and the ship’s engines. The reaction of the first engineer sabotaged the captain’s original plan. He had set sail for a sandy area at four miles, which he had found on the map. He would attempt to sit there. Without a driving force, however, he had to find another solution.”

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′′The captain broadcast SOS. Meanwhile the extraction was completely broken, the engine room was filling water and tilting forward the ship. As soon as we reached seven degrees, we decided to lower the boats and start evacuation. At sea he had no kindness. The cruise ship had sailed with seven beauforts. Two more were added to these later. The waves reached 14 meters. Many scenarios have been done, my brother. They accused the crew and the captain, but if there weren’t good moves with so much inconvenience and so much wave who would be saved? Do you think anyone was weighing in the boats.”

THE ′′DRAPETS”

“Among the crew, however, some tried to save themselves first. The first engineer along with some of the engine room got on a boat and left. And the second boat was only cooks. While we were busy on one hand throwing the boats they went the other way and left,” says Nikolaou.

“There were also 12 inflatable rescue media on the cruise ship. Before the sailing they were given for inspection. In the time of need, however, the crew found that everything was useless. They had returned them as they had sent them.”

Nikolaou got on the last boat.

′′Two babies, one 22 days old and the other one year old I put them down with a bucket (bucket) on the boat, he says. But over 100 people left on board, crew and passengers. At six in the morning the helicopters appeared. The captain went up to the third of these. ′′ He wanted to see where they were taking the crew to land. Then he returned and oversaw the operation from the air. He had also left the radio operator on board, and they were talking. Passengers thought the captain had left the ship. He didn’t give up though. He made the wrong choice. And on the boat what could he do in addition.”

Similar was the explanation Captain Avranas gave a few days after the wreck:

′′The circumstances were tragic and my responsibility was more than great. Nobody cared until that time if those who left on the boats were alive. I wanted to go down to the deck, where they were left lying on the floor, covered with blankets, passengers and crew members who sang to get courage. Something strong wind, something the helicopter pilot, they didn’t let me down he said. The ′′ ocean ′′ had reached the point where the sea was 81 meters deep. After evacuating, the 105 meter long ship began to sink. He hit the bottom, got back up, side of the fault and was swallowed by the sea forever.”

“What happened to the crew and captain? After rescuing passengers and crew followed by interrogations in Durban, South Africa. Authorities isolated officers and sailors at a hotel. Captain Davina Avrana’s English wife aboard the ship with their daughter Faye. Three years later she wrote in her book entitled, The Tragedy of the Oceanos :

′′ I wished there was a trial then to make the truth appear. It was embarrassing to me that my husband’s name was never cleared publicly. Instead of a medal, he received shame “. It was not a trial. Neither in South Africa nor later in Greece.”

“Christos Nikolaou, an Oceanist, had a relative who was an executive at the Panhellenic Federation. He in consultation with the international federation fled Nikolaou to Greece. After five days of staying at the hotel, the other Greek sailors with the assistance of the Greek consular authorities also escaped. ′′ They were taken from the hotel to the airport five minutes before the plane left, otherwise we would still be there judging us “, says Nikolaou.

In Greece the case was referred to the High Council of Maritime Accidents of the Ministry of Maritime. As provided for by Greek Maritime Law pursuant to Article 223: ′′ Captain of non-departures last during the abandonment of a dangerous ship, punishable by imprisonment and penalty of money “. The Oceanos crew was referred to disciplinary inspection for withdrawal of diploma or grade, but they were all acquitted.”

Article translated from Greek Publication ARXIPELAGOS.COM

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OCEANOS SINKING

Moss Hills - Oceanos Guitarist and Singer

Moss Hills, born in Zimbabwe, performed with wife Tracy as a guitarist and singer. He helped launch lifeboats, establish radio contact on the bridge and setup and ran the forward helicopter airlift, remaining on board until every passenger was rescued.

Moss Hills - Now Cruise Director

Moss moved from South Africa to the UK with his wife Tracy. He still works all over the world aboard ships as a cruise director, and does sometimes still perform. He also designs and builds websites, and gives promotional and motivational talks.

After the sinking of the Oceanos on 4th August 1991, the principal people involved in the rescue had to give official statements of events. In addition, Readers Digest magazine published a detailed article in their November 1992 issue, and they asked Moss Hills and his wife Tracy for as much detail as possible, including emotions and personal memories of events prior to and during the sinking of the Oceanos. This full statement is below

The Oceanos Sinking (Statement by Moss Hills Sep 1991)

Here follows a detailed account of my involvement in running the rescue operation aboard the sinking cruise ship, Oceanos. I have attempted to recount the events leading up to, during, and immediately after the rescue. I cannot recall the times accurately, but those given are my best estimation. The day prior :- ( Friday-Aug-02-1991 ) A local business man, Winston Sahd, had chartered the whole ship for the wedding of his son. In fact, he chartered it the day before this as well, for his son's bachelor party. The wedding was to be a lavish affair, with two priests, a huge amount of flowers and approximately 400 guests. As part of the entertainment team, Tracy and I were exhausted before the wedding even started, because we had been performing late the previous night for the bachelor party. During the night, the weather conditions worsened, and, after performing into the early hours of the morning, we only managed a few hours of restless sleep.

After docking in East London harbour on the Friday morning, the bachelor party guests disembarked and we prepared for the wedding guests to arrive. The weather continued to deteriorate, with very strong winds and rain squalls constantly assailing the harbour. A small army of decorators came on board and swept through the lounges and reception area, leaving a trail of flowers and festivity in their wake. I remember seeing some lavish arrangements and mentioning to the decorators that these could fall over once we put out to sea. They seemed unconvinced because, with the ship tied up to the dock, the movement was not severe, but I knew better. I had already experienced a number of bad storms over the years.

We sailed out of the harbour and into the rather daunting seas. After a few hours at sea, the bridal party decided that it was too rough to have the wedding, and we should return to the dock and stay in the relative calm of the harbour. Tugs were duly summoned, and we returned to the harbour, much to the relief of all of the staff. We knew that it would be difficult to conduct a wedding ceremony with the ship constantly pitching and rolling. Once we had entered the harbour the ship stabilised significantly and we all breathed a little easier. However, the bride took a look around and said that she didn't want to get married at the docks. She wanted to go back out to sea. The tugs were called again and off we went, back into the storm. This really was a wedding with a big budget. It costs thousands of dollars each time a tug and the harbour pilot are used, but, when you are chartering the ship, you can do more or less as you please. The wedding ceremony went ahead and it was certainly a memorable affair. I was on the stage, operating the sound system, and assisting the specially hired organist to keep her music, the keyboard, and herself in roughly the same spot. In between this, she kept on threatening to throw up. I moved some of the large flower arrangements to obscure us from the guests who were now seated in the lounge and watching the ceremony. Eventually she was sick. I took a large towel from the dressing room and held it for her to be sick into whilst she carried on playing. I have very clear memory of standing there, hunched over a vomiting organist, and peering through the elegant shrubbery at a glamorously dressed crowd all swaying together as if in some bizarre wedding dance. The wedding was completed without too much mishap, and the decision was taken to return to the harbour and continue the party there. This we did. Tracy and I, along with the other band, had to keep the music going until dawn. We would perform for an hour, then one of the cabaret artists would do a short spot and then the other band would play for an hour. It really was exhausting, but that's showbiz. Finally dawn broke, and, according to the agreement, we played our last song. They had been given their dusk 'til dawn wedding reception. The day of the sinking: ( Saturday-Aug-03-1991 ) Tracy and I grabbed a quick breakfast and then I went into town to purchase a few things and to 'phone my mother. Tracy stayed on board and tried to catch up on some sleep. I had finished my shopping and was walking back to the harbour when the storm really started to unleash its power. The wind was so strong that I was constantly leaning into it at an acute angle. My pace had slowed right down and then the rain started to pelt me. I began to wonder if we would be able to sail. I spotted a call box and took refuge in there whilst I 'phoned my mum. I told her about the storm and she said that she had heard about it on the weather report. She expressed concern over the safety of sailing in these conditions. I said that I wasn't sure if we would sail at all but that if we did, the ship would handle things well. Like a typical son I said," Don't worry mum." Like a typical mum she said," Please be careful." Like a typical son I replied, "Of course I will." I left the 'phone booth and walked into the torrential downpour. Luckily, a middle aged couple, on their way to look at the ship, gave me a lift to the quayside. I invited them on board and, after changing into dry clothes, I showed them around. There was a feeling of uncertainty amongst the staff as to whether or not we would set sail in these conditions. Late in the afternoon, an announcement was made, stating that our sailing time would be delayed. This happened a number of times. Finally it was announced that we could sail because the weather conditions further out to sea, along our intended course, were improving. Tracy and I usually play music out on deck for a sail-away party. The weather made this impossible and we decided to have the sail-away in the main show-lounge instead. It was a great success in spite of the weather. We got passengers to dance and sing, telling them that we would provide the rock and the ship would provide the roll. After that it was time for dinner, and then a short rest before the evening cabaret. 19:00hrs. As staff, we dined in our own private room adjacent to the main dining salon. The conversation was all about the bad weather and how much it would inconvenience the show later, especially the dancers. Dinner turned into an eventful occasion. The poor waiters were trying their utmost to keep from colliding into each other and dropping trays of food, and in this endeavour they were moderately successful. After dinner, Tracy made her way back to our cabin, and I went to the cruise office to collect our weekly wages. The storm seemed to be worsening, and, whilst in the office, some computer equipment broke free and crashed on to the floor right beside me. This had never happened before. I decided to go up to the show-lounge to check on the equipment. Quite a few passengers had finished dinner and were congregating in the lounge early, to obtain the best seats for the show. A few of the speakers, which were mounted on stands, looked a little shaky, and I decided to make them fast with some light nylon cord. This I did, as discreetly as possible. I did not want to arouse any fears in the passengers. 20:45hrs. I then made my way down to our cabin, but I saw three ship security men on the port side of Venus Deck, racing towards the aft. I immediately sensed a problem, and followed them to the crew stairwell on Dionysus Deck. Crew were pouring out from the decks below and some looked wet and most had life-jackets on. They were running to their cabins and grabbing small bags of personal possessions and then racing to the upper decks. There were a couple of officers around trying to calm them down. I ran to my cabin and told my wife Tracy to change into jeans and track-shoes and to be prepared for a possible abandon ship. I ran up to the main lounge to check on our band equipment. On the way, I was told that it had started falling all over the stage. Around this time, all the lights went out and then the emergency lights came on.  It was dark everywhere, but the public areas were dimly lit.  Almost all the passengers were in the main lounge because there was to be a show there at 22h00.  No-one knew what was going on and the ship was pitching and rolling wildly, with chairs, tables, bottles and glasses crashing around.  People were getting alarmed and confused as to what was going on. I was checking on my band equipment with Robin Boltman, another performer, and we decided to entertain everyone and keep them calm. Of course there was no power for speakers and microphones and the lights had gone out. We only had the dim glow of the emergency lights, but I played acoustic guitar and sang every sing-a-long I knew. Tracy then joined us and we kept going as best we could. In between songs, passengers kept asking what was happening, and we reassured them. Eventually we ran out of merriment and went to find out what was happening. Lorraine Betts was the cruise director, and she had been to the captain a few times and he had told her that there was a problem with the engine and that we should prepare to abandon ship. I argued that this was too dangerous, in the dark, with such mountainous waves and with the coastline so rocky and remote. I said that unless we were sinking, then surely our passengers would be safer on board and we could wait for a tug. Lorraine asked the captain if we were sinking and he said no, there was no water coming in, just an engine problem. I was convinced that he was lying, and decided to go down below to find out. I didn't want to go alone so Julian Butler (stage name Julian Russell), a magician on board, came with me. We went right down to the aft section and through the "Crew Only" areas. It was dark and deserted and with the ship plunging wildly it was difficult to negotiate the oily, steel stairways. We made it to the very bottom of the ship, the shaft tunnel, and it was completely dry there. Both propeller shafts are here and they go through the steel plates behind us to the propellers outside. This is many decks below the water-line and very unnerving to be there in the dark, with all the crew gone in a panic, and the sound of water on the hull outside. All we wanted to do was to rush back to the safety of the upper decks. We calmed ourselves and decided to carry on checking for signs of water. We moved forward but our progress was halted when we came to a bulkhead that was sealed off with the water-tight doors. Why were the water-tight doors closed? We must be taking in water. The doors were holding and I couldn't find any leaks. Obviously we couldn't risk opening the doors, so another way forward would have to be found. We had been down below for quite a while and were very tense so we decided to go back up and tell Lorraine Betts what we had seen. By now, some of the crew had lowered life-boats to the Embarkation Deck and Lorraine was organising women and children into them.  Strangely, we could see a large proportion of crew getting into the boats as well, but, more disturbing, was the fact that senior officers were also getting off. There had not been one single public address announcement made, no alarm sounded and still the captain said that we were not taking in water. Launching the life-boats was just a precaution. I doubted him, especially since his crew and officers were scrambling into the boats.  No-one seemed to be in charge. There were no officers around and the captain seemed more like a spectator. I was now very suspicious and, taking my video camera with me, I decided to check again if we were sinking. Once more I went below. This time no-one came with me. I went down forward of the engine room and as I approached Dionysus Deck I could hear the sound of water flowing. I turned the corner on the stairwell landing and I could see for myself. With a powerful shock I confirmed my worst fears. This deck was flooded, we were sinking. 01:00hrs Sunday morning, Aug-04-1991 ( This is an exact time )

I couldn't believe it. The captain and officers were lying. Why? I decided to video this area and I recorded the time and location. This footage, and more later, was used extensively in the subsequent enquiry, and by a number of television programmes around the world. Whilst I was filming, one of the crew, Costas, who was well known to me, came around another corner of that deck. He began shouting agitatedly that I must not video here. I kept my cool and dropped the camera from my eye but left it running. He began to herd me back upstairs and I was asking him if he saw all of the water. He just kept saying that there was no water and I was not to video anything. This footage was crucial in the enquiry, as it placed Costas at the scene of a flooded deck when he denied knowing that we were sinking until much later. I raced back upstairs and told the others. We now knew that the captain and his officers were lying to us. It was imperative that we organise for the evacuation of all of the passengers. We worked as fast as we could, getting passengers into boats.  Entertainers Robin Boltman and Terry Lester stayed in the Main Lounge, circulating amongst the passengers and keeping them calm. Tracy and I, plus Lorraine and a few other mostly female entertainment staff, carried on running the life-boat evacuation. By this time we were angry at the officers and the crew for abandoning ship with the passengers, and for the lack of command and assistance by the captain and the few officers who were still on board. We were now totally in command of the rescue operation. Nothing was running smoothly.  I had to break open one half of the double emergency exit doors, which were jammed and causing a bottle-neck of increasingly frightened passengers. Two other doors, giving embarkation access to a life-boat could not be closed after the boat was launched.  This left a wide gap at the bottom of the steeply sloping deck through which anyone could fall straight into the sea. This halted the line of passengers who needed to cross this area to get to the next boat. I had to stretch myself across the opening by bracing my feet and extending my arms wide. This way I could keep my body and arms rigid and hang onto each edge of the doorway.  Then people could carry on and use me as a railing. However, reason prevailed after ten minutes or so, and I decided that this was too dangerous. I spotted some rope under a stairwell. I stopped the line of passengers and tied the rope across the gap to use as a hand-rail. Then I asked Terry Lester to help me get the doors closed. We eventually did so and it was safe for the passengers to continue. We were all now really frustrated and angered at the lack of organisation and help from the crew, which was causing all of this unnecessary, additional danger. It was around this time that the passengers seemed to stop constantly asking what was happening, and where were the officers. They must have realised that we were in charge, and trying to do our best, in a thoroughly confusing situation. From this point on, almost every passenger I encountered, listened unquestioningly to my commands and co-operated. Getting passengers into the lifeboats was also dangerous, because the boats were not secured properly, and when lowered to the embarkation point, the boats would swing away from the ship as it rolled and then come crashing back against the side. I would stand at the edge of the ship and when the life-boat swung against the side I would put one foot on the life-boat, one on the ship, and quickly help a passenger into the boat, before jumping back onto the ship as the life-boat swung away again. Luckily, nobody fell into the sea, or was caught between the swinging life-boat and the ship. It's ridiculous that passengers should have been exposed to this kind of unnecessary danger. If the trained personnel had been running things it would have been far less risky. 03:00hrs Suddenly, there was only the one life-boat left that was possible to be launched. Now the true colours of the few remaining crew and officers could be seen. The life-boat could take 99 people but, when it had only about 50 people inside, the officers, now safely aboard, ordered it to be lowered. Lorraine and I argued with them, screaming above the noise of the wind and waves and the crashing of the boat against the ship's hull. We managed to delay them enough to put 20 more on with them and then they lowered themselves away with about 70 passengers in a boat for 99. We were now left with no life-boats that could be launched, approximately 220 people, in the dark and the ship now very low in the water. I went back down below to see how much more was flooded while Lorraine and Julian went to the bridge to see what the captain was doing. When I approached the dining area, I could hear the sound of a large body of water sloshing about. When I finally rounded the corner and looked into the dining-room, the sight was chaotic. The entire dining-room was under about one metre of water. Floating in this were chairs, trays, linen and various plants. As the ship rolled, the entire lake would crash to one side and stay for a moment, before crashing again to the opposite side. The furniture was now debris, and every ornament and piece of glassware was smashed. I could see to the far end of the dining-room, and noticed that the main entrance was wide open. This door was a fire and water resistant door, and should obviously be closed to slow down the flow of water. I attempted to cross the room by waiting for the water to move to one side and then I would run across the shallow side. I made a few attempts, but the water was moving too unpredictably, and I realised that I would be crushed by the furniture and glass laden water. I returned to the upper decks a bit shaken, because I now knew that most of the ship was flooded. Almost every time that I went into the lounge, passengers would immediately start questioning me on our progress. I kept them informed, but didn't mention that the water level was now only one deck below where they were assembled. There was one group who kept asking me to check the cabin of their friend and family member, Louise. She had not been seen since the evacuation had begun. We did not allow any passengers to go down below because we wanted to have complete control over where everybody was. This would minimise the risk of losing anyone by being caught in a flooded deck or overlooked and left behind. Louise's family were so insistent that I eventually made my way down to her cabin. I knocked on her door and, incredibly, she answered. She was about twenty years old, all alone, in the dark and seemingly oblivious of the grave danger that she was in. I told her who I was and persuaded her to open the door. She was in her night clothes and was wary of my intentions. I told her that we had a serious problem, and that she must put on her life-jacket and come with me immediately. This she did and I took her to her family. This kind of situation should never be allowed to happen. The least the captain should have done was to sound the alarm and then make a clear announcement over the public address system. If he had done this, then all of the passengers could have collected their own life-jackets and gone straight to the muster station to which they were assigned. I thought that we should now move all the passengers out of the lounge and onto the open deck. Although it was cold, and the deck was at a steep angle, at least nobody would be trapped inside as the ship went under. The passengers were mostly calm and listened to our instructions. Lorraine returned from the bridge and asked me to come back with her. She and Julian had found no-one on the bridge and we wondered where the captain was. We went to the bridge and realised that it was unmanned and so decided to try and establish contact. It was like a scene from a movie. We grabbed the radio phone and took turns calling " Mayday Mayday" until a ship answered. From then on we were running the bridge as well. I went back to the lounge to fetch my wife Tracy. She had been at the lounge exit the whole time, guiding passengers out to the boats, checking that their life-jackets were on properly and reassuring them. The last of the passengers were out on the deck now and Tracy and Robin joined Lorraine, Julian and I on the bridge. We made and received various calls from ships in the area, and many times they asked for information that we just didn't know. We wanted to ask the captain what to do and eventually I located him and the remaining few officers on the pool-deck with the other passengers. He was keeping a low profile under a stairway and just crouched there smoking. He wouldn’t come back to the bridge. He was just like another passenger waiting to be rescued. By radio, I spoke to Captain Detmar aboard the ship "Nedlloyd Mauritius" a few times and the radio reception was clear.  Captain Detmar was extremely calm and efficient sounding and was very reassuring.  At first he asked me a few technical type questions and wanted to know our exact position, how many people were still on board, our angle of lean and current strengths, etc. When I was unable to answer he wanted to know my rank. I answered that I wasn't any rank, I was a guitarist. After a short pause to digest this he came back on and was extremely supportive. In fact, South African newspapers picked up this story and ran a cartoon of me as a small figure on the bridge of a listing ship in pounding seas, captioned with "Attention, attention, this is your lead guitarist speaking". The artist sent me the original of it which I still have. 04:00hrs It seems ridiculous that the captain and a few other officers should just be sitting in a huddle by the pool-deck stairway and not helping us. I was back and forth from the bridge in the bow, to the pooldeck aft a number of times, to ask the captain's advice. It was a difficult journey across an increasingly steep, slippery and dark deck. The last time that I spoke to the captain, was when I again left the bridge after being asked to give an estimate of how many hours we had left afloat.  The ships in the area needed to know, because they couldn't come close to the Oceanos because of the heavy swells and currents. If the Oceanos collided with another ship, it could endanger that ship and possibly send the Oceanos straight under. Therefore, the ships in the area had decided to wait in a circle around us, and as we went under, they would move in closer and rescue as many as possible from the water. Captain Detmar asked me to estimate, as close as possible, how long we had left afloat, so that they could be prepared to move in as soon as possible. I made my way back to the pool-deck and asked Captain Avranas how long we had. He said about 2 hours, or possibly 3. I again asked him to come to the bridge and handle it but he said he would just wait there. This was about 04h00.  I went back to the bridge and radioed through to Captain Detmar that Captain Avranas said we had between 2 & 3 hours left afloat. What has always troubled me is that when the choppers arrived, Captain Avranas left on the 2nd one and this was about 3 hours after he told me that we only had 2-3 hours left.  His estimate was wrong but in his mind we were about to go under but he got off with about 200 people left on board.  I gave up on him in disgust and returned to the bridge. We stayed on the bridge until the choppers arrived at around 06h30 on Sunday, 4 August. When they arrived, Lorraine went to check on the passengers on the rear deck and I went to the fore-deck and Tracy came with me. We left Robin on the bridge so that he could radio back our progress. The navy divers agreed that the ship was now sinking faster and were worried that we would not all get off. We decided that one diver would go to the aft deck and set up a helicopter rescue station there. I would then run a helicopter rescue station from the fore-deck. We split the number of remaining passengers more or less in half, so we each had about one hundred and ten to try and get off by helicopter. Julian Butler and the other navy diver then got into the last inflatable dinghy so that they would be in the water close to the ship in case we dropped any passengers into the sea. In fact this did happen, and they were on hand to sort it out.  I found it difficult to run the rescue from the fore-deck. The angle of the deck was very steep because the ship was lying on her starboard side and was rolling around.  I found some rope and secured it around my waist and then tied it around the ship's port railing.  Then I tied more rope to the railing and across the deck to the deck access door as a hand-rail for the passengers.

Tracy then got some guys to fasten the rope at her end.  There was a lot of confusion and people cramming into a small area.  A few times some people started to get panicky and one middle-aged man tried to push past people.  Luckily Tracy was very firm and kept everyone under control. Tracy then organised the passengers so that the remaining women were first and then the oldest men first and the youngest and fittest last. Then on my signal she would send passengers out to me, two at a time.  The helicopter harness was a double unit and this became the routine for the next five hours.  With Tracy keeping control of the passengers in our section and me only having to worry about two at a time into the harness, we were able to function efficiently.  Neither one of us would leave without the other and, we could trust and count on each other. Eventually the last passengers from the aft deck were off and Lorraine and her assistant, Geraldine Massyn, came forward and told me that they were getting off.  They went right into the bows and got off on the rubber inflatable with the rest of the entertainers and remaining T.F.C. staff.  This was organised by the Navy diver Gary and entertainer Julian Russell.  After transferring these people to a life-boat waiting a safe distance away, Julian and Gary returned and floated close to my rescue station in case any of us fell from the deck or harness or the ship went under altogether.  With the deck so steep and the ship rolling about, at least 10 or 12 passengers slipped and fell as I tried to attach the harness to them.  Each time I would slide down the deck with the rope around my waist and pull them up. Once, two old ladies fell together and I slid down the deck to get them but didn’t have the strength to pull them and myself up. They just hung on to me and Geraldine Massyn and the Shop Assistant, Ronan Leonard, pulled us to safety.

Another time, I had fitted the harness around another two old ladies and as usual, the chopper would wait for my signal to winch them up.  I signalled to go, but somehow the ship rolled and the railing struck their legs and they swung against the bridge superstructure.  The chopper was already committed to rising and the two old ladies were banged and bounced against the bridge area until they cleared it and swung free.  They swung over the water and then like a pendulum they swung back towards the ship. I don't know why the chopper couldn't have winched them faster, but perhaps there was a problem there.  As they swung back towards us the passengers waiting on deck screamed as they watched helplessly and the two ladies struck the ship again, but only their lower bodies.  Everyone was shaken and the passengers were now even more scared of going into the harness.  I decided to untie the safety rope and move it further along the railing towards the bow.  This meant it was a greater distance for the passengers to go across the bow deck to reach me but it would lessen the risk of a repeat of the previous two swinging into the ship.  Luckily this did not happen again. I saw the two ladies who swung into the ship when I was at the Holiday Inn in East London waiting to fly home.  They called me over to thank me and I apologised about their ordeal in the harness. They were both covered in severe bruises but not serious.

At one point, as I was trying to catch the swinging harness being lowered, it snagged on the side of the ship.  There was immediate danger of the rolling ship and high winds causing the line to jerk tight and pull the chopper down, before the winch operator could free it. Without really thinking I jumped over the railing and hung across the side of the ship to free the harness.  I then crawled quickly back.  It was over in a flash. However, the real danger now came.  My wife saw what I had done and ran across the deck to yell at me and then she returned to her post.  I turned sheepishly to the waiting passengers and continued with the rescue.  Eventually we were almost finished when the helicopter crew signalled me to count up how many were left. There were 12 male passengers, Robin in the Bridge, myself and Tracy, the only female left. That made a total of 15. The chopper signalled to hold on and then left.

The wait was terrible.  The ship was sinking even lower and it became so difficult to stay on the steep deck that I considered moving us all over the rail and onto the side of the ship because that was now almost flat as the ship was right over onto its starboard side. After about 45 minutes a chopper came back but the ship was starting to go down in the bow.  The chopper crew signalled me to move everybody back to the aft.  This was a very difficult task but we all slipped and slid and made it to the rear deck.  Finally the last of the passengers were off and it was our turn.  We were hoisted off and it was all over.

MOSS HILLS - THE DAY LEADING UP TO SINKING: We played right through the previous night (Friday) until around 06h00.  Then after a couple of hours sleep I went into East London town to buy a few bits and pieces.  (Shampoo, toothpaste, cool-drinks and chocolates and magazines).  I also went to buy copies of the local papers that had run a story on the wedding and a "man overboard" situation we'd had the day before.  It was a crew member who jumped over the side.  He was rescued quickly in one of the same rubber ducks later used by Julian.  I was returning from town, a long walk, and was laden down with my packets and about twenty newspapers for the staff.  The wind was extremely strong and I was leaning into it and really feeling its strength.  It became difficult to keep the newspapers from tearing and blowing away.  The sky looked very threatening and I hurried to avoid being caught in the rain.  I passed a 'phone booth close to the harbour and 'phoned my Mum in Pietermaritzburg to confirm arrangements to see our daughter Amber and the rest of the family the next day. (Sunday). As we spoke the rain started to bucket down and combined with the roaring wind, made conversation impossible.  She asked if we were going to sail in the bad weather and I said "Yes, of course, we'll be fine!". I was drenched walking through the harbour area.  An elderly couple, on their way to look at the ship, gave me a lift and I reciprocated by taking them on board and after changing into dry clothes I showed them around. I put all of our shopping bags and newspapers, plus other things bought on behalf of the staff into our cabin.  We had to play the sail-away party so I thought I'd hand over the staff shopping later.  Of course I never did. We played the sail-away party inside the main lounge (Odysseus lounge) instead of out on deck because of the terrible weather.  It was a great success with everyone singing along and the T.F.C. staff heading up a conga line.  The ever efficient Lorraine Betts was there watching all the fun with complete detachment.  Her passengers were being kept happy.  Good.  Things were all going to plan. Then it was supper.  Then to the cruise office to organise our salary.  Then get ready for the evening show.  Then we started sinking.  The rest you know ......

MOSS HILLS - MY EMOTIONS: I had times when I was scared.  Each time I went below to check on water levels, I was always worried that the ship might roll over and I'd be trapped or that the water pressure might burst a bulkhead and flood over me.  At other times of danger I didn't have time to be scared.  When I was stretched across the opening to the life-boats, I was too busy hanging on and guiding people past.  Anyway, that only lasted less than 10 minutes or so.  On the fore-deck with the choppers there was so much noise of wind, sea and engines and the deck heaving and just hanging on that I didn't think about dying. When Tracy and I were alone on the bridge we discussed what to do when the ship actually went under.  We'd stick together and tie some extra life-jackets together to make something to cling to.  We said over and over that we were glad that our 15 year old daughter, Amber, and her 14 year old cousin, Shayne, had got off in Durban a few days before.  If they'd been aboard we may have acted differently. I felt angry at the lack of co-operation from the Captain and his officers but never voiced it to him.  He is the Captain and at the time, on board, it's hard to change that perception of him. However, the less they did, the more determined I became.  Then, when hundreds of people were unquestioningly and trustingly obeying our instructions, I just couldn't let them down.  Almost every single passenger who I dealt with, especially the older ones took the time to express their gratitude before they stepped into a life-boat or were yanked off the deck by a chopper. When Tracy and I and the last 12 passengers were hanging on the railing for 45 minutes waiting for the choppers to refuel, that was also a time of great tension.  However, I'd been on that deck for many hours and I was used to the danger and the proximity of the water so I wasn't very fearful. My constant worry was that I had secured the harness incorrectly around passengers.  Before Gary left me alone he said to make sure the harness strap was high under the arms and not low in the back.  If it was too low then the force of the chopper lift could break or damage the spine.  This, coupled with the fact that so many passengers slipped and fell and others struck the railings as they were hoisted aloft, made me worried about the injury rate of the people I was rescuing.  When our chopper finally landed and people swarmed around to thank us and I saw that everyone looked okay, I was overcome with emotion.  Then I really felt that it was over and I just hoped that everyone was off and my friends and fellow staff who had been on board were safe.

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Many Call, But Few Cancel After Cruise Ship's Sinking

By Edwin McDowell

• Aug. 7, 1991

Travel agents said yesterday that they had received many telephone calls from worried customers after the sinking of a Greek cruise ship off South Africa, but that few had canceled their bookings.

The cause of the sinking of the Oceanos in the Indian Ocean on Sunday is under investigation, and several agents and cruise industry officials said they were hoping it was an accident.

Many noted that the industry was only just recovering from the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro, an Italian cruise liner, by Palestinian terrorists, and from a recession that continues to bedevil most of the travel industry.

The Persian Gulf war briefly curtailed cruises to Europe and the Mediterranean earlier this year, but cruise lines scrambled to add more trips to the Caribbean, Alaska and Mexico, and stepped up advertising and promotion.

The strategy appears to have worked: The 860,000 cruise passengers during the first quarter of this year was a 14.2 percent increase over the corresponding period in 1990, according to Chris O'Neill, a spokesman for the Cruise Lines International Association. The association predicts a record 4 million passengers in 1991, up from 3.7 million last year.

"The whole cruise industry was affected for a couple of years by the Achille Lauro, because people were afraid," said Lou Garcia, whose Manhatan public relations firm represents the Epirotiki Lines, the Greek company that owns the Oceanos.

Mr. Garcia said Epirotiki received only "a couple" of cancellations yesterday and some bookings.

Bob Biege, who owns Admiral of the Fleet Cruise Center in Milwaukee, said his agency had calls but no cancellations. "It's nothing like after the Achille Lauro, when we got a lot of the 'tell me about the security' inquiries," he said.

Agents said that this time, most customers seemed to be making a distinction between an act of nature and an act of terrorism.

"An act of terrorism suggests a pattern of behavior, but this was apparently a fluke accident in high seas," said Jill Wall, co-owner with her husband of Vacations at Sea in New Orleans. "But that doesn't mean I'm not very disappointed at the crew's response, or lack thereof."

Other travel agents also criticized Yiannis Avranas, the captain of the Oceanos, who passengers said left his sinking ship before most of them were rescued. All 571 people aboard were saved, but questions remain about the seaworthiness of the 7,500-ton vessel.

"Try to picture a Norweigan captain leaving the ship early," Mr. Biege said. "The whole country would revolt. He'd have been tarred and feathered."

Mr. Garcia defended Captain Avranas. "I think he's been unduly maligned without a fair hearing," he said. "He wasn't running away. After he ordered the ship to be abandoned, he got into a helicopter to supervise the rescue operation."

Still, the sinking of the Oceanos is likely to increase demands for even greater safety regulations for foreign cruise ships that carry mostly Americans. All but two of about 115 cruise ships that operate in the United States are registered in foreign nations. Two years ago, the National Transportation Safety Board warned that many of those ships had serious safety deficiencies.

But Jack Estes, the president of the International Council of Cruise Lines, said yesterday that the safety board "is way off the mark."

"The safety standards of the foreign-flag cruise ships operating under the regulations of the International Maritime Organization, which all of them do," he said, "are as good and in many cases better than the U.S. standards." Avoiding Epirotiki

Even before the Oceanos sinking, some travel agents said they avoided Epirotiki Lines.

"Epirotiki is used to dealing more with Europeans, who aren't as demanding as Americans," said Steve Snider, a sales agent for Cruises Only in Portland, Ore.

But Americans account for about 40 percent of the passengers on the Mediterranean cruises of Epirotiki, Mr. Garcia said. "We're a major company with nine ships, not just one that went down and now we're out of business," he said.

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