NORTHERN LIGHTS CRUISE DEC 2023 WITH A STING IN THE TAIL

A cruise with a sting in the tail.
We departed from Tilbury on the9th of December to cruise up the Norwegian coast and see the Northern lights, the cruise was amazing and enjoyable but on the 20th December Captain Eryk told us there was a major storm headed into the North Sea so he was cutting the cruise short and going to sail straight for Tilbury with the aim of arriving at night on the 22nd December.
Half way across the North Sea the storm turned Southwards and increased in intensity with seas rising to 20 mtrs, we were making good progress until we went into the trough of a very large wave and the massive following wave hit us head on, it hit the bridge and exploded 3 large windows before flooding the bridge and destroying all electronics so all navigation equipment failed and there was no way to control the engines or steering.
We were ordered to muster stations and issued survival suits and lifejackets and remained at stations for over 4 hours.
The engine and emergency steering was transferred to the engine room and we regained power, the 2 container ships which responded to the MayDay call were stood down and a large tug reached us, they attempted to attach a tow twice but broke the line and as we now were under our own power it sailed ahead of us using its navigation equipment to guide us towards Bremerhaven where we docked late on the night of the 22nd.
Hurtigruten arranged flights from several airports and we arrived in England on Christmas eve.
It is down to the sheer skill of Captain Eryk, Chief Engineer Per and all the crew that this incident only resulted in minor injuries and we were all kept safe.
Contrary to press reports we were not towed to Germany, we sailed under our own power.
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