Thread: Why do so many people fall overboard?

I hear so many stories of people falling overboard, why does this happen so often?

I don't think it's that much,but my guess is drinking.

I don't know what you mean by many stories - it doesn't happen all that often. And when you figure there were over 10 million people cruising worldwide last year and maybe 2 or 3 instances of people going overboard, that's really not many at all given all the drunks onboard an average cruise.

But normal people don't just fall overboard. There's always something that contributes to the cause, which most of the time is drinking or just plain stupidity. People have fallen overboard while trying to climb from one balcony to the next.

It's like anything else in life; if you just take the normal precautions, you're fine. The people that go overboard throw caution to the wind and stuff happens.

Normal people are fine.

But stupidity does have a price.

Pete

We have a feeling that some cases are suicide.

Originally Posted by KeithnRita

We have a feeling that some cases are suicide.

agreed and some are murder.. lets face it...

As Pete said, normal people don't fall overboard. Some jump, some are pushed and the rest will have been doing something they should not have been.

Agree! Normal people do not fall overboard ... unless they get murdered!

I am sorry ......I am still waiting to meet "normal" people

Originally Posted by JoeyandDavid

I am sorry ......I am still waiting to meet "normal" people

Just don't hold your breath while waiting!

Accidental falls are all but impossible. Suicide, murder and drunken stupidity should account for the rest.

You have to figure that there are several ships (for fun, I just went on vacationstogo.com and did a quick count of the ships that they say are in service -- excluding the ships about to come out -- and there were over 200!) that are sailing every day. With small ones of maybe 100 passengers ranging up to the biggies that hold over 5,000 passengers. So if falling overboard was pretty common, we would be hearing about these events every week. If someone disappears off a cruiseship, most likely it gets on the news. Not the times that there aren't abnormal events onboard.

That's why you'll hear often (but again, not every week) about norovirus outbreaks. But then, many of these originated on flights or otherwise prior to the cruise and just incubated onboard.