Cruise ship blimp goes into the drink

Well, it was a short lived, but useful trial.  Apparently the blimp that the new Royal Caribbean cruise ship Oasis of the Seaswas testing detached and fell to the ocean during sea trials.  Kudos to Royal Caribbean to having the patience to test this endeavour before putting passengers aboard.  For our previous article on the blimp trial, go here. 

Here is the word from Royal Caribbean chairman Richard Fain’s blog conerning the incident and the conclusion of the ships sea trials.

“Hull Number 1363 (soon to be known as Oasis of the Seas) has just completed her sea trials and is now back at her berth in Turku. Most of the trials were a terrific success. The ship performed her various tests very well and everyone is very excited.

BUT, we had one nasty surprise early this morning. I previously mentioned that we were thinking of adding an aerostat to the ship and were doing a test to see if it was practical/desirable. It required a lot of temporary rigging but they managed to put a test balloon on the ship.

Then this morning, something happened and the balloon broke free. It ended up in the water and we are now taking steps to recover it and determine what happened. This is precisely why we do such tests (and why I don’t take credit until we know whether or not they are successful).”

Is this the end of tethered blimps on cruise ships?  I have a hunch it is not!