Eight hundred passengers, reported to be mostly Americans, found themselves stranded on the cruise ship Viking Orion off South Australia for seven days after the ship was denied permission to dock in Adelaide, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Hobart, due to marine growth or “biofoul” on the ship’s hull.

Australia’s National Maritime Coordination Centre established that the ship’s hull had small amounts of biofoul – marine microorganisms, plants, algae, or small animals.

The Guardian reports that authorities ordered the Viking Orion’s agent to have its hull cleaned before entering Australian waters.

“The vessel is required to undergo hull cleaning to remove the biofoul and prevent potentially harmful marine organisms being transported by the vessel,” the Australian fisheries department said on Sunday.

The ship anchored approximately 17 nautical miles off the coast near Adelaide on Friday and Saturday where professional divers were hired to clean the hull. 

The Viking Orion (47,861 gross tons) introduced in 2018 as the fifth cruise ship in the company’s ocean fleet, departed Sydney, Australia on December 22 for a two-week Australia-New Zealand Christmas-New Year’s cruise. According to the published itinerary, the cruise ship made two port calls on New Zealand’s North Island at Tauranga and Napier before the problem was identified while the vessel was a Wellington, New Zealand on December 26.

Following an extended pandemic ban, cruise ships only returned to Australian waters in August 2022. The Viking Orion returned to Sydney on December 8. She had made several port calls in both Australia and New Zealand since her return without a problem before this cruise.

What happened? Was there a sudden outbreak of biofouling on the ship’s hull?

The problem appears to be more a change in Australian regulations rather than accelerated marine growth. 

New requirements for managing biofouling on international vessels arriving in Australia began on June 15,  2022.  Australia phased in the introduction of the new requirements from June 15, 2022, to December 15, 2023, to assist vessels to comply.

Maritime Executive reports that the Viking Orion was not the first ship to run afoul, so to speak, of tighter biosecurity regulations in the region. Just before Christmas, New Zealand officials had also blocked Princess Cruises’ Coral Princess from scenic cruising of Milford Sound and a port call at Port Chalmers after snails were found on the cruise ship’s hull. New Zealand is known to have strict biofouling regulations with officials highlighting that 90 percent of marine pests arrive in the country on the submerged surfaces of international vessels. 

Thanks to Alaric Bond for contributing to this post.