A violent wave and strong winds briefly knocked out power and the navigation system on a luxury Norwegian cruise on Thursday, Danish authorities and the ship's owner said.
The authorities' update comes as harrowing footage of massive waves rocking the ship in the North Sea has gone viral, including a clip of the wild wave that reportedly smashed windows and knocked out power aboard the MS Maud .
“There is no electricity on the ship,” a spokesman for the Danish Joint Rescue Coordination Center told Portal on Friday. “The main engine is working, but the navigation systems and radars are not.”
Despite the frightening footage, cruise company HX, a subsidiary of Norway's Hurtigruten Group, said in a statement that all 266 passengers and 131 crew members of the ship were physically unharmed – although some were certainly affected by seasickness.
A frightened passenger told the Chron that he immediately knew something was wrong when the massive wave rocked the ship.
“As soon as the wave hit, the television screen went dark and the ship's distress signal sounded,” the passenger said, adding that passengers, tables and chairs shifted around the ship as it was hit by the waves.
The wild wave hit the MS Maud as it sailed about 120 miles off the west coast of Denmark, the Hurtigruten group said. From Floroe, the westernmost town in Norway, we went to Tilbury in the southeast of England.
A description of the MS Maud on the Hurtigruten Group website says the ship is “well suited for expedition cruises.” Publicly available fares indicate that cruises with stops in Floroe and Tilbury cost at least several thousand dollars.
A tugboat was dispatched to tow the damaged boat back to a port in Germany. Meanwhile, the company said the ship was being controlled manually from the engine room but was unable to navigate.