Thanks to CruiseHive.com

A Costa Cruise ship sailing in the Mediterranean has been affected by bad weather conditions including strong winds.

Apparently according to local Italian media the neoRomatica which is operated by Costa Cruises had a scary ordeal during a Mediterranean cruise. The ship sailed into a storm on Thursday night March 5th near the vessels last port of call at Trapani, Sicily. The storm was producing wind gusts of around 60 mph which also caused strong waves to hit the 57,000 gross ton cruise ship.

The neoRomantica was forced to let go one of its anchors so the strong conditions wouldn’t knock it out of action. The anchor was apparently hitting the ship’s bow very strong which has done some damage as seen in the featured image. An Italian forum has messages from passengers who were onboard the ship at the time:

” Moments of panic !!! staff on board certainly very prepared to deal with the situation! We were forced to stay almost a full day in the hallway without eating almost had it not been for some apple and a few bottles of water !!! ”

“My boss is on board, I confirm cabins flooded (including that of my head, not accessible to virtually all day yesterday, the water is coming down from the ceiling, wetting the bed and carpet, you name it) and the black out” .

Here is one video posted by a YouTube user who was a passenger onboard neoRomantic as the storm was just starting to get more intense:

So it seems some Cabins had been flooded but this could have been from water pipes inside the ship. With the heavy rocking and banging of the waves against the ships hull it’s possible that pipes could burst. As a result of the damage the ship diverted to Savona, Italy instead of sailing back to its home port of  Marseille, France. Passengers were taken back to Marseille by bus.

Cruise Hive has requested further details from Costa Cruises and will update this report once we get a response.