A canceled cruise inspires confidence

There’s nothing worse than a regulated industry with a weak regulator.

Americans learned that the hard way during the 2008 financial crisis when banks that looked reputable suddenly collapsed.

In the aftermath, one response was to devise more realistic “stress tests” for judging the health of banks.

I thought of that when I learned what tests the Coast Guard had applied to the Fathom ship Adonia, which had several deficiencies that left it unable to sail its first scheduled voyage on April 10.

It was undoubtedly disappointing to the passengers who had traveled to Port Miami only to learn that they couldn’t take their appointed cruise to the Dominican Republic. It was also disappointing for the Fathom team that had been working hard for months.

But perhaps it’s a good thing in the long run for Fathom and for the cruise industry in general.

The Coast Guard described the most serious problem as “numerous sliding fire screen doors that are inoperable.” That sounds alarming, and it is.

But in Fathom’s case, there was an additional wrinkle. Because the Adonia had sailed for PO Cruises in the U.K. for a long time, the Coast Guard treated it like a new ship, subject to a more rigorous exam.

So Fathom not only had to show the doors would work under normal conditions with full power, but under emergency conditions. The Coast Guard assumed that both the main engines and emergency generators were disabled and the ship was running on “transitory” battery power, according to Commander Bradley Clare, chief of the prevention department in the Coast Guard’s Miami office.

Clare said it is not a new test and has been done for years. The only difference for newly constructed ships is that it is often done at the shipyard and not at the terminal.

I for one am encouraged that the Coast Guard tests ships under realistic scenarios that mimic the chaos of problems that occur at sea.

True, it is unlikely that both the main and backup emergency generators would fail at the same time. But then assumptions that problems would be isolated instead of systemic led to the meltdown of the financial system.

Passengers can be a little more confident in the safety of cruise ships knowing that the stress tests that the Coast Guard sets up before it approves a new vessel really are stressful.