A crew member aboard the cruise ship MSC Virtuosa required urgent medical attention and was evacuated shortly after the vessel departed from Hamburg, Germany. MSC Virtuosa, which had 6,300 passengers on board and had made 14 calls to Hamburg previously, left the Cruise Center Steinwerder around 9 p.m. on Sunday evening en route to Zeebrugge, Belgium.

The crew of the Grand Princess rescued two sailors stranded at sea after their boat suffered engine failure and began taking on water near the coast of Wilsons, Australia. The sailors, a 58-year-old man and a 29-year-old woman, had escaped in a dinghy after activating the emergency beacon.

The cruise ship P&O Ventura rescued three people stranded on a sailing yacht on Monday, March 20. The sailors made a call to the US Coast Guard requesting assistance after the vessel lost its steering ability in the Gulf of Mexico.

A crew member aboard the P&O Ventura who reported the rescue operation said:

The cruise ship MSC Meraviglia made an emergency stop at the port of Miami to medevac a passenger in need of urgent medical assistance. The ship was at MSC Cruises Private Island Ocean Cay in the Bahamas when the captain announced on the PA system that they needed to depart to Miami in order for the Coast Guard to perform a medical evacuation.

A 59-year-old Filipino crew member went overboard from Ponant expedition cruise ship Le Lyrial, while the vessel was moored at the port of Ushuaia, Argentina.

The incident happened on Friday, February 10, when the ship’s officers requested assistance from the rescue teams after the crew member fell into the water while securing the gangway as the vessel completed the mooring procedure.

The World Voyager came to the rescue of a small sailing boat in distress and provided assistance to four distressed mariners on December 13, while crossing the Atlantic.

The U.S. Coast Guard executed a medical evacuation of a 29-year-old female crew member from the cruise ship Carnival Valor. The crew member was medevacked on Saturday evening as the ship was sailing on the Mississippi River near Port Sulphur, Louisiana. 

Captain Omar Caruana and the crew of the cruise ship Mein Schiff 1, have been recognized with the Cruise Line Humanitarian Assistance Award from the Association for Rescue at Sea (AFRAS), an organization whose mission is to provide worldwide support and assistance to volunteer maritime rescue services and recognize and honor extraordinary maritime rescues.

A 24-year-old crew member went overboard from the cruise ship MSC Splendida on Wednesday, while the vessel was sailing off the coast of Calabria, Italy. The MSC Splendida stopped immediately and a Man Overboard signal was sounded at around 4 a.m. 

Royal Caribbean Lifeguards have had a busy start to the year. This year, they have assisted over 160 guests in pools on board across the fleet. However, it is not always at the pools that lifeguards jump into action.