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When someone jumps overboard from one of the top decks of a cruise ship, the event is usually fatal and is followed by expressions of grief – but in the latest case, the cruise line is furious.

Royal Caribbean is considering legal action against a passenger whose friends filmed him leaping from the 11th deck of the Symphony of the Seas, the world’s largest passenger ship, and plunging 30 metres into the sea.

The line kicked the whole group off the ship and has banned them for life for the dangerous, madcap stunt, which was posted on Instagram in a bid to go viral.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BsgYghHnrsF/

Whooping with laughter and full of bravado, American Nick Naydev, 27, jumped from the 341-metre-long Royal Caribbean ship, which was docked in Nassau, Bahamas.

“I was still drunk from the previous night,” Naydev responded to a user on Instagram. “When I woke up I just decided to jump. My feet were actually fine. It was my neck and tailbone that hurt.

“When I sobered up my back started hurting pretty bad. Could barely walk for three days.”

Naydev, who according to the South Florida Sun Sentinel is a former gym coach, did not respond to messages for comment about the jump, but said on social media that he “never felt more alive”.

Some viewers thought Naydev’s stunt was cool. Other’s didn’t. One wrote, “This guy thinks this stunt is going to bring him some sort of legendary status on the internet…WRONG! It does prove what a complete moron you are.”

Another viewer called him “Colin from Bandersnatch”, a reference to a Netflix episode of Black Mirror where a character jumps from a balcony.

In a statement, Royal Caribbean called the stunt “stupid and reckless” and confirmed that Naydev and his companions “have been banned from ever sailing with us again”.

The cruise line added: “We are exploring legal action.”

Symphony of the Seas weighs more than 220,000 tonnes and has 18 decks. The ship can accommodate almost 7000 passengers and 2200 crew.

ROYAL CARIBBEAN’S OUTRAGE over the stunt comes just a week after an incident on the same line’s Harmony of the Seas, in which a 16-year-old boy, on holiday with his family, fell to his death while trying to reach his cabin from the balcony of an adjacent room on the eighth deck.

In that case, the company reacted differently. “We are saddened by the loss of one of our guests in a tragic accident,” wrote Owen Torres, manager of corporate communications for Royal Caribbean.

Written by Peter Needham