Vision of the Seas - Oscar, Oscar, Oscar starboard

[Wirecutter]

We were on Vision of the Seas having dinner about 40 feet away when the man overboard incident occurred.  There was a tone on the PA system, then "Oscar, Oscar, Oscar, starboard.  Oscar, Oscar, Oscar, starboard".  Out the window, I saw men running aft, one of which had a life ring, and EPIRB, and a bunch of rope.  We didn't see him jump, but minutes later, we spoke with a lady that had. She said she'd given her name to ship personnel, but they seemed uninterested because they have cameras everywhere. The guy was distraught and saying a name over and over. He then went outside to muster station 13, removed his shirt and shoes, and jumped over the rail.

The seas were a little rough.  The ship was moving at around 20 kts at the time.  At that speed, it takes 1.5 - 2 nautical miles for the ship to do anything like turn around or stop.  The ship did turn around, and it heeled over quite a bit turning at speed.  The reason for the life ring and the EPIRB was to drop a "marker" to come back to after turning around.  When we returned a few minutes later, the ship went dead in the water, and we could see the strobe from the EPIRB, the lifeboat used in the search, and of course all the search lights, all from the balcony of our cabin.  The ship stayed there for a couple of hours until the Coast Guard arrived and took over the search.

Things the media got wrong:

. The ship was actually about 200 miles due East of Savannah, Ga. I think people say Charleston, SC because that's what the Coast Guard refers to. There is a naval station at Charleston, and likely a Coast Guard station as well. Our location was 31 degrees 59.02N, 77 degrees 57.35 W. This was at the time and is from the ship's GPS as displayed on screen in all staterooms. I had texted this to my neighbor.

. The ship seached for a couple hours and waited for Coast Guard. Spent another hour and a half waiting for crew to fix a winch so they could haul in the lifeboat used in the search.

. Ship was underway again before 11 PM. The ship did not spend 5 or 6 hours searching, although the resulting delay was 5 hours.

. The guy didn't fall, he jumped. He was never seen again.

[Kendall James-Vargas]

@Wirecutter This is horrifying! Thank you for sharing your story and the details you were able to obtain while onboard that weren't thoroughly portrayed in the media. I'm so distraught about how there was someone who recognized the odd behavior but still was not able to save his life. It's so important to look for these disturbing behaviors onboard, but it's even more important that the security crew act on these behaviors, not taking them lightly. If there had been proper protocols initiated by the crew members, I do believe this incident would have been avoided. There were clearly warning signs. It's no one's fault, but proactively preventing these incidents is crucial!