A reader of Professor Ross Klein’s website Cruise Junkie states that the Sun Princess cruise ship lost power for a few hours last week.

The Princess Cruises ship was apparently at the end of a 104 day "world cruise," from Sydney Australia and back.

The Incident allegedly occurred around 4:30 in the morning of Tuesday, August 27, 2012, when the cruise ship was in the Tasman Sea west of the Bay of Islands, New Zealand.  The reader states that the vessel lost all power, after a transformer had blown.  The cruise ship then floated around without any power for around three and one-half hours.  After the transformer was repaired around 8:00, the cruise ship continued sailing back to Sydney. 

Power failures like this have plagued the cruise industry over the last couple of years, with similar incidents affecting Azamara, Carnival, Costa, Cunard and Royal Caribbean ships.

Power failures during calm seas may pose nothing more than an inconvenience to the passengers, but it is a dangerous prospect if a cruise ship loses power during rough seas.

This cruise ship, built in 1995, experienced power failures in 2005 and 2007.

Anyone with more information about what happened, please leave a comment below.

Photo credit: Wikipedia / Lemeki Lenoa