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‘Typical Brit’ cruise passengers calmly carry on drinking as water floods across deck during storm

Viral video shows those onboard sitting and chatting while water flows across the deck

Helen Coffey
Wednesday 06 November 2019 11:48 GMT
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People continued to drink while water flowed across deck
People continued to drink while water flowed across deck (Twitter/Calum Lawson)

Not much puts a crimp in British holidaymakers’ ability to enjoy themselves – not even a waterlogged cruise ship, it seems.

Passengers on a P&O cruise were filmed calmly sitting and drinking onboard while water gushed across the deck, flowing over their feet as a storm raged around the boat.

The current was strong enough that a small table can be seen dragged from one side of the ship to the other – but many of the passengers appear completely unperturbed.

Calum Lawson, a marine engineer who works onboard the ship, shared the video on Twitter, along with the caption: “Best part of this video is the amount of typical Brits are so un-phased by any danger that occurs because ‘they’re on their jollies’ n nothing can spoil that... b*****d ships flooding man”.

The video has been viewed 722,000 times.

Lawson also shared a video of the water crashing out of the on-deck pool as the ship’s captain was forced to make a “precautionary manoeuvre”.

“Work on cruises ships they said...it’ll be fun they said,” reads the caption.

Pool water crashed across deck (Twitter/Calum Lawson)

The incident occurred as the ship, the P&O Ventura, attempted to dock at Cherbourg in northwest France on Saturday 2 November.

One fellow passenger, Alison White-Sheen, told the MailOnline that the storm had lasted about an hour and that staff had later drained the pool, although it was “a little late as most of the water had already gone over the decks”.

A P&O Cruises spokesman said: “Whilst sailing between Cherbourg and Southampton Ventura was required to make a precautionary manoeuvre which caused some pool water to spill over on to the deck. The Captain had anticipated this may happen and guests were advised in advance, pools were then subsequently emptied for safety.”

It follows a cruise ship being hit by such extreme winds in March 2019 that several passengers were injured after furniture flew across the ship.

The Norwegian Escape was sailing off the East Coast of the US when it was rocked by winds of 100 knots – the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane.

The gusts caused the ship to strongly tilt to the port-side just before midnight.

Video taken by a passenger shows those on board scrambling to get out of the way as tables and chairs crash across the floor, while bottles smash to the ground from behind the bar.

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