The cruise ship Calypso, being towed by an English coastguard tug, arrives into Southampton, England after an engine fire sparked a major alert in the English Channel. Photo: AP
May 7, 2006 - 11:13AM
A ship carrying 708 people has arrived safely in the British port of Southampton after an engine-room blaze left it drifting in the English Channel, a maritime official said.
There were no casualties among the 462 mainly Dutch passengers of the Cypriot-flagged Calypso and a Cypriot crew of 246, coastguards said.
Maritime spokeswoman Fiona Warren said the ship was towed into the port almost 16 hours after the drama started.
"She has got her mooring ropes out. She has not got the gangway down yet," Warren told AFP.
"The passengers are still onboard, they are on deck looking very happy and relieved to be near shore," she said.
Once on dry land, the travellers will spend the night at local hotels before catching flights home, said Warren.
The ship's fate was less clear.
"A team will be going onboard to assess the situation, so time will tell," said the Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokeswoman.
In a four-hour emergency after the fire broke out, the 11,000-tonne vessel was nearly abandoned at one time, with passengers mustered at evacuation stations and lifeboats prepared for launching.
Specialist fire fighters from Britain were transported to the ship by helicopter after the Calypso sent out a distress signal about 10 minutes after the blaze started.
Both French and British lifeboat services sent aid and merchant ships plying the Channel, one of the world's busiest waterways, were diverted to stand by.
A spokesman for Louis Cruise Lines, the Cypriot company that operates the ship, said 454 of the passengers were Dutch, along with two Belgian, two Swiss, a Briton, an American, a Swede and a citizen of Belarus.
The Calypso had sailed from the Belgian port of Zeebrugge and was heading for Saint Peter Port on the Channel island of Guernsey.
It was towed to Southampton by the Anglian Monarch, a tug operated jointly by France and Britain.
AFP
A cruise ship caught fire 32 km (20 miles) off the southeast coast of England. The blaze started in the engine-room of the Calypso, which had 708 passengers and crew onboard. 

The passengers were mainly Dutch.

Specialist firefighters transported by helicopter from the East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service tackled the fire.

It was tugged to Southampton by the Anglican Monarch, a tug boat jointly operated by England and France. The relieved passengers left to boat 16 hours after the fire started. 

"A team will be going onboard to assess the situation, so time will tell," said the Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokeswoman.

There were no causualties and no evacuation.