Scarlet Lady Ran From a Storm Into Rhodes. Then Its Ropes Snapped.

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The plan was sensible. A gale was building over the Aegean, so Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady tucked herself into the harbour at Rhodes to wait it out.

Shortly after 8:15 p.m. on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, the harbour turned on her anyway.

Waves rolling through the port snapped several of her mooring lines. The 110,000-ton ship drifted toward the edge of the harbour and leaned on a catamaran called the King of Rhodes and two smaller boats tied up there. A ship more than seven times the catamaran’s length, built for 2,770 guests, had been pushed sideways by the very weather she came in to hide from.

Nobody was hurt, and the captain had her back on the berth under her own power. But the reason it happened is worth understanding, and so is what Virgin’s contract says it owes you when a storm rewrites your cruise.

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What Happened in Rhodes

The first account came from Greece’s national news agency, ANA-MPA, and the local site rodiaki.gr, as carried by Skai and Pontos News. Shortly after 8:15 p.m., mooring lines on Scarlet Lady parted “because of the wave action,” and the ship moved toward the edge of the harbour. There she came into contact with a catamaran and two small boats that were moored at the spot.

SDNA and Parapolitika named the catamaran as the King of Rhodes. The Greek word they used for the contact, epakoumvisi, means “touching against” rather than “crashing into,” which fits the early reports that nothing was damaged.

Here is what the Greek reports agree on:

• The captain fixed it fast. He manoeuvred the ship back to her berth under her own power. The harbour’s tugs were put on standby, and the Central Port Authority of Rhodes was mobilised.
• Nobody was hurt. No injuries were reported among passengers or crew, and CruiseMapper and Parapolitika both say no marine pollution was reported either.
• No damage, at first look. According to the information available that night, the three small vessels weren’t damaged. Skai’s report credits the captain’s quick reaction with heading off “a more serious incident.”

Two details rest on a single report each, so treat them with care. Parapolitika reported that the Rhodes coast guard barred both the cruise ship and the catamaran from sailing. CruiseMapper, citing the Cretan outlet Nea Kriti, reported that Scarlet Lady’s gangway fell into the water as she pulled away from the quay. We found no second report of either.

Early, late, or both?

One detail doesn’t add up. Several Greek outlets, citing state broadcaster ERT and rodiaki.gr, say Scarlet Lady arrived that afternoon “one day earlier” than planned to dodge the weather. Skai says only that she arrived earlier than planned, and that the original plan was a Wednesday morning arrival and an afternoon departure. The published itinerary, listed by VV Insider and CruiseMapper, backs Skai: Rhodes on Wednesday, September 30, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Either way, at 8:15 p.m. she was still alongside, more than two hours after her published departure time, with a gale blowing outside. We couldn’t find a statement from Virgin.

The Mismatch: Cruise Ship vs. Catamaran

Part of the comedy is the size difference.

	Scarlet Lady	King of Rhodes
Type	Cruise ship (Virgin Voyages)	Passenger-only high-speed catamaran (Sea Dreams)
Length	277 m (909 ft)	38 m (125 ft)
Size	110,000 gross tons	Not published on the listings we read
Passengers	2,770 guests, plus 1,160 crew	300 or 338, depending on the listing
Built	2020, Fincantieri, Italy	1994
Flag	Bahamas	Not stated

The Night Cruise Ships Ran for Cover

Scarlet Lady wasn’t the only ship trying to get out of the weather. Greece was entering several days of violent wind and rain. On September 30, Argophilia reported north-easterly winds of Force 8 to 9 in the Aegean. To Vima reported gusts above 90 km/h (about 56 mph) and a red alert for Crete running from Wednesday evening to Sunday.

Across the sea in Crete, Cunard’s Queen Anne made an unscheduled call at Souda, the port for Chania, late on Wednesday afternoon with 2,841 passengers aboard. She stayed overnight and was due to leave once it was safe, according to Ta Nea, Paraskhnio and Greek City Times. She was the fourth cruise ship to arrive in Chania that day. Dimitris Virirakis, president of the Chania port authority, announced the arrival online and warned that “more will come,” Hania News reported. The same outlet put the day’s total at 10,991 cruise passengers, a record for the port, though we didn’t find that figure anywhere else.

Here’s how the storm played out for ships at sea, put together from the reports linked:

When	What happened	Source
Tue Sep 29	Scarlet Lady is scheduled in Bodrum, Turkey, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.	VV Insider, CruiseMapper
Wed Sep 30	Force 8–9 north-easterlies. Overnight ferries to Crete skip their stops at Serifos and Milos.	Argophilia
Wed Sep 30, 9 a.m.–6 p.m.	Scarlet Lady’s published Rhodes call. Greek reports say her arrival was brought forward because of the weather.	VV Insider, Skai
Wed Sep 30, about 6 p.m.	Queen Anne makes an unscheduled call at Souda with 2,841 passengers, the fourth cruise ship in Chania that day.	Paraskhnio, Ta Nea
Wed Sep 30, evening	A red alert for Crete takes effect, running to Sunday.	To Vima
Wed Sep 30, just after 8:15 p.m.	Scarlet Lady’s lines part in Rhodes. She touches the King of Rhodes and two small boats, then returns to her berth.	Skai, SDNA
Thu Oct 1	Ferries are banned from sailing from Rafina and Lavrio.	To Vima
Fri Oct 2	Winds reach Force 9, locally 10. Ferries are held in Piraeus until 8 p.m., and Rafina and Lavrio stay shut.	Keep Talking Greece, Skai
Fri Oct 2	Scarlet Lady is back at sea, heading for Santorini on AIS tracking.	CruiseMapper

Why a Ship Can Break Loose Inside a Harbour

We’ve written before about why cruise ships keep breaking free in high winds. A tall ship is a giant sail, and the push of the wind rises with the square of its speed. Rhodes was a little different. Every Greek report blamed the waves, not the wind.

A harbour wall stops the big seas, but it doesn’t stop all the movement. Some wave energy gets round the breakwater, and a moored ship starts to surge, moving back and forth along the quay, and to sway, moving in and out from it. Those motions are what break the lines. British marine insurer Britannia P&I, in its 2024 guidance on surge damage, says the usual claims are “the ship’s gangway placed on the wharf, incidents with mooring lines parting, or even contact damages between moored ships and berth facilities.” That is very nearly what happened in Rhodes, in that order.

Slack is the enemy. Britannia warns that “when the mooring lines are too slack, moored ships can move extensively at berth, potentially causing contact with other ships.” Its advice for crews is to “closely monitor and tend mooring lines” so there’s no slack. When a ship is surging, it says to consider “raising the gangway” and keep crew clear when lines come under strain, because a parting rope can snap back with enough force to injure anyone nearby.

It doesn’t take much water movement to do this. A port briefing published by the Norwegian marine insurer Skuld, written by its Australian correspondent, about Geraldton, Western Australia, where ocean swell gets into the port, says the surges there “generally vary from between 5 to 20 cm.” Even so, 71 mooring lines broke on ships in 2013, 15 of them on a single ship. In 2005–06 the total was 250. A few centimetres of rise and fall, repeated over and over, wins against rope.

So a harbour that keeps out the open sea can still shake a ship hard at the berth. That’s why some ships run for a deep, enclosed bay instead.

Why Souda is the hiding place of choice

Look at Souda on a map and it makes sense. The bay is about 15 km long and only two to four km wide, a deep natural harbour with hills on both sides, and it’s home to a major Hellenic Navy and NATO base. Greek reports called it a “particularly safe” port in bad weather, which is why Queen Anne went there and why its port chief expected more ships to follow.

What Virgin’s Contract Says It Owes You

If you were on Scarlet Lady this week, your itinerary may have moved around you. Here is what Virgin Voyages’ ticket contract (version 6.5, dated October 7, 2025) says about that, in its own words.

Section 9.1 gives the line the right to “cancel, advance, postpone or deviate from any scheduled sailing, port of call, destination, lodging or activity,” at its “sole discretion,” and says the guest agrees the line “shall not be liable for any claim whatsoever by Guest, including but not limited to any losses, compensation or refund.” Section 9.3.5 is even more specific: the line may “omit, advance, or delay landing at any scheduled or advertised port.” Bringing a Rhodes arrival forward, or staying past the published departure, is exactly what that clause covers.

In plain English: a weather change gives you no right to a refund. That isn’t unusual. Most big lines’ contracts read much the same, as our guide to what you’re owed when a ship skips a port explains. What you get in practice is goodwill. When Virgin swapped Bermuda for Saint John, New Brunswick, on Valiant Lady’s April 6, 2026 sailing because of a gale, it gave $100 in Sailor Loot per cabin and refunded the Bermuda shore excursions, according to VV Insider and Cruise Fever. That was a goodwill gesture, not something the contract requires.

One more clause is worth knowing before a messy port day. Section 16.4 caps the line’s liability for lost or damaged guest property at $300 per guest per cruise, unless you declare a higher value before boarding and pay a fee.

What to Do If Your Ship Is Sheltering From a Storm

1. Treat a schedule change as a weather warning. If your ship turns up early, stays late or changes its order of ports, the captain is probably reacting to a forecast. Check it yourself and plan for a rough few days.
2. Go ashore early and get back early. On a windy, surging berth the crew may raise the gangway at short notice, as Britannia’s guidance recommends. You don’t want to be the one on the quay when it goes up.
3. Stay away from the rail above the mooring decks. A parting line can snap back with real force. If you hear bangs from the bow or stern while the ship is moving at the pier, move inside.
4. Don’t count on a refund. Do ask for goodwill. Under clause 9.1 you’re owed nothing, but lines often offer onboard credit and refund excursions in a skipped port. Ask guest services politely, in writing, and keep the reply.
5. Book excursions through the ship, or ones you can cancel. Virgin automatically refunded its own Shore Things in the Bermuda swap. An independent tour in a port you never reach may be harder to get back.
6. Check your travel insurance for missed-port cover. Read the policy for missed-port or itinerary-change cover before you sail, not after the storm. Our guide to cruise travel insurance covers what to look for.

The Bottom Line

Scarlet Lady did the sensible thing and came into port to get out of a Force 8 gale. The waves followed her in, snapped her ropes and pushed 110,000 tons of cruise ship onto a 38-metre catamaran. Then a quick-thinking captain put everything back, with nobody hurt and, as far as anyone has reported, nothing broken.

The lesson: “in port” doesn’t always mean “safe from the weather.” If your captain starts juggling the schedule, watch the forecast and the gangway, and leave the last souvenir shop for another day.

Cruise Chaos earns nothing from cruise lines and doesn’t run booking affiliate links. This story is based on Greek reports published on the night of September 30 and the following days. Some details rest on one outlet only, and we’ve said so where that’s the case. The Greek reports disagree with the published itinerary about when the ship arrived, and Virgin Voyages hadn’t commented publicly when we published. If we’ve got something wrong, tell us and we’ll correct it in the open.

Coming up on Cruise Chaos: more chaos from the high seas, with every fact checked.

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• Snap, Drift, Crunch: Why Cruise Ships Keep Breaking Free From the Dock
• Packed for Nova Scotia, Sailing to Nassau: The Nor’easter That Scrambled a Fleet of Cruise Ships
• What Happens When a Cruise Ship Skips a Port? Here’s What You’re Actually Owed

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Sources

• Skai: Ρόδος, έσπασαν οι κάβοι κρουαζιερόπλοιου, ακούμπησε σε τρία σκάφη (Greek, citing ANA-MPA and rodiaki.gr)
• Pontos News: Ρόδος, έσπασαν κάβοι του Scarlet Lady (Greek)
• Efsyn: Αναστάτωση στο λιμάνι μετά τη θραύση κάβων του Scarlet Lady (Greek)
• SDNA: Ρόδος, επακούμβηση κρουαζιερόπλοιου με καταμαράν (Greek)
• Parapolitika: Συναγερμός στη Ρόδο, επακούμβηση κρουαζιερόπλοιου με τουριστικό πλοίο (Greek)
• Flash.gr: Έσπασαν κάβοι του Scarlet Lady στη Ρόδο, αναγκαστική άφιξη πλοίου στη Σούδα (Greek)
• CruiseMapper: Virgin Voyages’ Scarlet Lady ship breaks mooring lines at Rhodes
• CruiseMapper: Scarlet Lady itinerary and current position
• VV Insider: Greek Isles & Mykonos Overnight, 27 September 2026, Scarlet Lady
• Wikipedia: Scarlet Lady
• Ferryhopper: King of Rhodes
• Ferries in Greece: King of Rhodes
• Ta Nea: Έκτακτη προσέγγιση στη Σούδα για το Queen Anne (Greek)
• Paraskhnio: Η κακοκαιρία έφερε εκτάκτως το Queen Anne στη Σούδα (Greek)
• Hania News: Έκτακτη άφιξη κρουαζιερόπλοιου στη Σούδα, Βιριράκης: θα έρθουν και άλλα (Greek)
• Greek City Times: Queen Anne cruise ship makes emergency stop in Crete
• Argophilia: Ferry routes to Crete modified due to severe weather
• To Vima: Greece storms, extreme rain and winds expected, ferries docked
• Keep Talking Greece: Sailing ban for ferries due to gale-force winds in the Aegean
• Britannia P&I: Understanding Surge and Interaction Damage (July 2024, PDF)
• Skuld / Aus Ship P&I: Swells at Geraldton, Australia (PDF)
• Wikipedia: Souda Bay
• Virgin Voyages: Ticket Contract (v.6.5, October 7, 2025)
• VV Insider: Major change to New York itinerary as Bermuda stop replaced
• Cruise Fever: Valiant Lady skips Bermuda and heads to Canada to avoid rough weather