ONE elderly passenger died and 11 were hurt when fire broke out on the passenger decks of a Bermuda-registered cruise ship in the Caribbean Sea yesterday.

The Princess Cruises vessel was carrying more than 3,800 passengers and crew from the Cayman Islands to Jamaica, when the fire broke out in the early hours of the morning.

The blaze aboard the 950-foot Star Princess forced passengers to grab life jackets and scramble to muster stations on deck in early-morning darkness. About 100 cabins were affected by flames and smoke.

A male passenger died "following a cardiac arrest", the company said in a statement, while two suffered significant smoke inhalation and nine had minor complications from breathing smoke.

Officials later named the dead passenger as Richard Liffidge, 75, of Georgia.

"We do not know how the fire started," Princess Cruises spokesman Julie Benson said. "It broke out in the passenger accommodation. We don't know exactly where it started."

California-based Princess Cruises is owned by the Carnival Corporation.

The vessel made its maiden voyage in 2002 and is one of 135 commercial ships registered in Bermuda.

In the Senate this week, it was revealed that Bermuda outperformed 114 of the 116 countries and states in the 2005 Shipping Industry Flag State Performance Table.

The island was one of only two jurisdictions with no negative indicators against its name.

The table is designed to indicate standards of safety, environmental and social performance.

Junior Transport Minister, Senator Walter Roban, said the island expected a net gain of $1 million from 11 new vessels to register under the Bermuda flag in 2006.