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Cruise ship makes port detour

Sunday's incident, which delayed a cruise for two hours, highlights the clash between flashy tourism and old-time port businesses.

TAMPA - How big is too big for the giant cruise ships at Tampa's port?

That's the question maritime professionals are asking after local pilots refused to sail the port's largest cruise ship, Carnival's Miracle, through a channel to reach its passenger terminal at Tampa's Channel District Sunday.

Instead, the 960-foot-long ship docked at an industrial area of the port. Buses carried about 4,500 passengers between the berth at Hooker's Point and the cruise terminal. The ship returned to sea two hours late because it took so long to move customers and luggage to the cargo dock.

"It was a logistical challenge," said Jennifer de la Cruz, a Carnival spokeswoman.

The problem was a fuel tanker unloading its cargo, making the channel too narrow for pilots to comfortably navigate. It also offers a textbook example of the conflict between the port's gritty old-time businesses and its flashier tourism side.

By Florida law, local ship pilots must be at the controls of foreign-flagged ships as they move through state waters. Tampa Bay pilots studied sister ships of the Miracle to determine if the vessel needed special rules to safely move through Tampa Bay.

Before the ship started cruises from Tampa in November, they set "preliminary restrictions" on its operations until pilots gained experience with the big vessel, said Allen Thompson, executive director of the Tampa Bay Pilots Association.

One rule was pilots wouldn't take the ship through Sparkman Channel if a vessel was docked at the Citgo Petroleum terminal, near a bend in the channel. That made the channel too tight for comfort, Thompson said.

"We're trying to do everything possible not to compromise the margin of safety for safe passage," he said.

Citgo agreed not to dock a petroleum vessel at its terminal for the first five Miracle sailings at the port. But that expired in mid December, said terminal manager Terry Fluke.

The terminal supplies gasoline and diesel fuel for a wide arc of Central Florida, from the Tampa Bay area north to Ocala and south to Fort Myers. Last week, Fluke said, the terminal's tanks were about to run dry of premium and regular gas.

He told the Tampa Port Authority and pilots last Thursday that a tanker was scheduled to come in on Sunday, the day the Miracle drops off passengers from weeklong western Caribbean cruises and departs with a shipload of new cruisers.

The authority and Carnival had a plan, but that required scrambling to arrange buses to move people around.

Inbound passengers had to be picked up at the cargo dock and taken back to the cruise terminal. Arriving passengers checked in and got security screening at the terminal, then were put on buses for Hooker's Point.

Supply companies that provision the ship were redirected. Passengers had to board the ship on crew gangways at dock level. The boarding took longer than usual, delaying the departure for two hours, said de la Cruz, the Carnival spokeswoman.

"The biggest issue for us is the inconvenience to our guests to be shuttled around," she said. "This doesn't make turnaround day as efficient as if we operated out of our own terminal."

Port officials, Carnival and the pilots are discussing changes to keep the cruise ship operating from the terminal.

Thompson predicted a resolution "very soon," but couldn't say if the same conflict would happen when the Miracle arrives again Sunday.

Interim port director Bill Starkey also expects a short-term fix for the problem. The real challenge, he said, is preparing for the day when even larger cruise ships want to come to the port.

"Long term, we're going to have more Miracles," said Starkey, who is expected to leave the port when a permanent director is hired next month.

Even before the Miracle, cruise ships created friction with cargo vessels at the port. The other vessels can't pass the largest cruise ships in Tampa Bay's long, narrow shipping channels. They must wait until the giants pass through.

The port is asking for federal money to widen the channel, creating "passing lanes" to end the bottlenecks. But that project is at least years away.

Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or 813 226-3384.