As parents of a senior at Maine Maritime Academy, we were invited to do the last leg of their training cruise, which involved riding a tug out to their 500-foot training vessel and transferring onto it in choppy Penobscot Bay. It was one hairy experience. There is that one point where you have to step from one rolling boat onto the steps leading up the side of the ship. Took an hour to get 50 people on board the ship. I just can't imagine getting 4000 people transferred from one ship to another.
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