Hawaii Cruise Sails Into Huge Storm As Pilot Falls From Ship

For nearly a week, until yesterday, the entire island chain was left bracing against weather that would simply not let up. The wind was neither occasional nor brief. At BOH headquarters on Kauai, we saw repeated gusts pushing 50 mph, and the rain moved through in bands that sometimes felt endless. Hard to describe, this was totally unique weather. The ground never dried, and the ocean even now looks unsettled, even on stretches that are usually predictable at this time of year. You could hear the gusts constantly and watch the trees bend sideways during the day.

This was not a quick front that rolled through and cleared out. It was nearly a week of advisories stacking up, and radar that kept lighting up. By the time February 10 arrived, the island had already taken a solid pounding from wind and rain.

The incident off Kauai at Nawiliwili Harbor.

When the Emerald Princess approached Nawiliwili Harbor, the deteriorating conditions were obvious to anyone standing on the island. The harbor was sitting on Kauai’s southeast coast, which was right in the path of strong easterlies. The water outside the small harbor was very choppy and unsettled, with whitecaps visible offshore and wind pushing hard straight across the harbor entrance.

Passengers aboard the 3,090-guest ship watched as a harbor pilot attempted to board from a small pilot boat alongside the vessel. Eyewitness accounts and video shared online show the pilot climbing the rope ladder attached to the ship’s hull as the pilot boat rose and fell with the swell. After several attempts in shifting seas, he slipped and fell into the ocean as guests looked on from above.

A man overboard call was announced across the ship, and the pilot boat quickly maneuvered back to retrieve him. He was pulled aboard within minutes and, based on passenger reports, did not appear to be injured. More than 3,000 passengers had just crossed six days of open Pacific Ocean from Los Angeles. Kauai was scheduled as their first stop. Until this.

Instead of attempting to dock, the Emerald Princess canceled its Kauai call and continued on to Maui instead. This 16-night Hawaii itinerary crosses the Pacific twice. Once, before reaching the islands, where Kauai is normally the first port after that endless stretch at sea from the west coast. On this sailing, guests briefly watched the island from offshore, then saw it recede behind them just as quickly.

From the ground here, we can concur with what one passenger wrote online, “The weather has been insane here in Hawaii. Our ship has been listing about 5 degrees.” Others described watching the pilot attempt to board several times before the fall, with the smaller boat rising sharply against the much larger hull.

The weather was expected well before arrival.

From the island side, none of this felt sudden or unexpected. The National Weather Service in Honolulu had been issuing alerts days before the ship reached Hawaii, and the storm pattern was already forming when the Emerald Princess departed Los Angeles on February 4. Forecasts called for an unusually strong Hawaii winter cold front with heavy winds and rain, flash-flooding potential, and thunderstorms approaching the islands.

By February 5 and 6, watches and advisories had stacked up across the state, including a flood watch along with high wind and surf warnings on north and west shores from an extra-large swell. As the system moved through, winds strengthened behind the cold front, and by February 7 and 8 the National Weather Service upgraded warnings for high wind with gusts possibly as high as 60 mph in some areas along with a Gale Warning covering all Hawaiian waters.

On February 10, the day of the incident, a Wind Advisory remained in effect with sustained east winds of about 25 mph and gusts to 50 mph. A high surf advisory continued targeting east-facing shores, including Kauai’s southeast corner, where Nawiliwili Harbor sits, with breaking waves forecast in the 7 to 10 foot range. Rain chances remained high throughout the week, and radar repeatedly showed heavy bands moving across the island.

Anyone living on Kauai could see and report what was happening without needing any warning at all. Trees bent for many days. Rain soaked everything. The ocean outside the harbor never settled, and the water turned brown.

Boarding in these storm conditions.

Transferring a harbor pilot from a small boat to a large cruise ship normally requires timing and coordination, even in moderate seas. The pilot boat must hold position alongside the moving vessel while the pilot climbs a rope ladder secured to the ship’s hull. As the two vessels move independently, rising and dropping occur at different, unpredictable moments.

Add sustained winds and confused seas as we had, and the margin for error shrinks rapidly. Passengers reported that the pilot made several attempts before his fall, suggesting that conditions were already challenging.

Princess Cruises has not issued a public statement detailing the decision-making process behind the attempted transfer in those conditions. Standard cruise industry practice is to refund prepaid shore excursions made through the cruise line when a port call is canceled, and the Emerald Princess quickly resumed its schedule with a call in Maui on February 11 before continuing to Hilo and Honolulu. Guests who had arranged tours, rental cars, or simply planned their first walk ashore in Nawiliwili saw those plans quickly fail as the ship turned away from Kauai.

From the island’s perspective, this was the tail end of a weeklong stretch of unpredictably strong winds, rain, and high surf that most residents were already dealing with before the ship even arrived offshore.

If you were aboard that sailing, would you have expected the ship to attempt entry given the advisories, or would you have assumed Kauai was off the table once you saw the sea conditions?

Photo Credit: © Beat of Hawaii at Nawiliwili Harbor, Kauai.