The Carnival cruise line, the Triumph's journey, which began a week ago in Galveston, Texas, has had one calamity after another. It began by losing propulsion after an engine room fire on Feb. 10 and was adrift off southern Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.
A broken towline halted the disabled Carnival Triumph Thursday afternoon, as it inched toward shore near Mobile, Ala.
Frantic crew members on the lead tug boat replaced the broken line in about about an hour, before currents could push the ship back to sea.
"I don't know how much more we could [taken]," one passenger Larry Port recently told CNN. It has been described as a nightmarish journey for its passengers, to whom are literally trapped onboard, according to the New York Daily News.
The disabled Carnival cruise ship that's been adrift in the Gulf of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula since Sunday has slowly resumed its shoreward journey. A broken tugboat towline initially briefly halted its progress.
The cruise ship also lost propulsion after an engine room fire.
According to NBC, "With dry land agonizingly close, a crippled cruise ship described as a nightmare of filth limped Thursday toward an Alabama port - and finally relief for passengers who say they are exhausted after days without sufficient food, power or working bathrooms."
"Pipes are busting, I know the sewer is backing up, and water is in the cabins, and it's just a nightmare," passenger Jamie Baker told NBC's "Today" show this morning in a telephone interview from aboard the ship. "It's just a nightmare
The Triumph was about 39 miles offshore when the towline snapped, a Carnival spokeswoman told the Daily News. This began a cascade of incidents, including a journey without fresh food or clean bathroom facilities. Crews on the ship raced to repair the line so four tugboats could resume pushing the 900-foot luxury liner toward Mobile.
It took another hour to get the towline replaced and the ship back on course. Carnival Cruise Lines has canceled a dozen more planned voyages aboard the Triumph and acknowledged that the crippled ship had been plagued by other mechanical problems in the weeks before the engine-room blaze. The National Transportation Safety Board has opened an investigation into the cause.
The ship had been scheduled to land midday Thursday, but its arrival time is estimated to come back somewhere between 8 and 11 p.m. central time, a Carnival spokeswoman said.
There are 3,143 guests and 1,086 staffers onboard. It had planned to return to the small port city outside Houston on Monday.
