There is a very interesting article/interview with Mark Conroy, President of Regent Seven Seas Cruises on the ABC News website: http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/story?id=7671941&page=1.

In the article it is explained that the reason the fishing line which damaged the azipod did the damage it did was because the cutters which are part of the system had been modified and, alas, that modification caused the cutters…well, not to cut the line. I am not sure who approved the modification or if same was tested prior to being accepted, but me thinks there is someone who as some explaining to do.

There are some other interesting tidbits in the article such as Regent is expecting to operate at approximately 80% of capacity. That is not great, but it could be worse. It is just a matter of how you slice it. (Sorry for the pun.)

Another fact: Regent, while it still operates the Paul Gauguin, accounts for 1.1% of the entire cruise market. Put another way, the article point out, all of Regent’s capacity on a single day would easily fit on one of Carnival’s megaships.

In any event, word has it that the cruise from Iceland is going well with the azipods working just fine.