HANSA 03-2019

Schifffahrt | Shipping

Schifffahrt | Shipping Completion of »Scenic Eclipse« at troubled Uljanik shipyard has been postponed to 2019 Klausdorfer Weg 163, 24 148 Kiel - Germany Tel.: +49 (0) 431 66 111-0, Fax: +49 (0) 431 66 111-28 E-mail: info@podszuck.eu, Internet: www.podszuck.eu Klausdorfer Weg 163 | 24148 Kiel | Germany Tel. +49 (0) 431 6 6111-0 | Fax -28 info@podszuck.eu | www.podszuck.eu company has »only« 15 ships now, but they have the largest average size by GT and by capacity. Last year, the 4,140 bed »Seaview«, the second newbuilding from Fincantieri, was commissioned. The order book of MSC is larger than the existing fleet. And on top of these big ships the company has signed an MoU with Fincantieri for the building of four higher rated ships for 1,000 guests last autumn. © Scenic Cruises The fleet of the German operator TUI sums up to just 10% compared to Carnival’s capacity and the average size is also smaller. But the group includes some facts worth mentioning. In January 2019 the TUI/Royal Caribbean joint venture TUI Cruises commissioned the sixth new ship since 2014 resulting in one of the youngest fleets. One more will follow 2023 and two bigger LNG ships 2024 and 2026. The sister brand Marella Cruises for the British market operates older ships which are being replaced by somewhat younger former RCL ships and other vessels. Two charter ships were returned to the owner Louis who surprised the market by sending the »Marella Spirit« ex »Nieuw Amsterdam« to the scrap yard. With 35 years she is relatively young but lacks balconies and other modern features. Hapag-Lloyd Cruises continues operating the high-rated »Europa« and »Europa 2« and brings the expedition fleet to a similar standard, soon. The »Hanseatic« was already sold and will be replaced this year by two new »Hanseatics« with 230 beds. A third sister will replace the smaller »Bremen« by 2021. The newbuilding programme of the Malaysian Genting group is taking shape at their MV Werften in Germany. Their long-standing cruise company Star Cruises is cannibalized by transferring the »Superstar Libra« (1988, 732 cabins) to Wismar as accommodation for newly hired shipyard workers and by upgrading the »Superstar Virgo« (1999, 1,800 beds) for the Dream Cruises fleet, which already includes two larger vessels. Star Cruises will later be pushed by new 5,000 bed vessels. These are under construction at MV Werften as well as the 200-bed luxurious expedition vessels. More new ships for the Crystal brand are still in the design phase. Their designs were reduced from 100,000 GT to 65,000 GT with lower capacity and their building slots will follow the two other types. All other cruise fleets have less than half a million GT currently. The next to surpass the 500,000 GT level is Disney Cruises with three 135,000GT ships on order for delivery in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Viking Ocean Cruises has no big ships, but their fleet plan will make them surpass a fleet size of half a million tons by building 48,000 GT cruisers in a long series. Five of them are in service, five more will follow until 2023 and two smaller ones too. The list of options includes six more of the larger type and two more of the smaller type. The plan is to operate 20 ships by 2027. 34 HANSA International Maritime Journal – 156. Jahrgang – 2019 – Nr. 3

Schifffahrt | Shipping Virgin Voyages have ordered a fourth ship of 110,000 GT for 2,770 passengers while the first one is not in service, yet. The ordering activity in the small ship range also does not face a real slowdown. In Portugal the delivery of the »World Explorer« was postponed to 2019, but Mystic Cruises fixed already the delivery of two 9,300 GT sister ships from WestSea Shipyard. Sunstone also fixed some sister vessels of »Greg Mortimer« at a Chinese shipyard. The completion of the »Scenic Eclipse« (16,500 GT, 220 beds) at Uljanik (Croatia) has been postponed to this year. In spite of the delay, the Australian river cruise operator has already ordered a sister vessel from the same shipyard. Following several years of delay, the story of the third sailing ship for Sea Cloud Cruises should find a happy ending with the completion of the »Sea Cloud Spirit« by the Spanish shipyard Metalships & Docks by 2020. The delay was caused by the bankruptcy of the first shipyard. The shipyards Shipyard Ships 1,000 GT latest del. Fincantieri (I) 34 3.850 2027 Atlantique (F) 10 1.749 2024 Vard Group 11 126 2022 Fincantieri total 55 5.725 2027 Meyer Germany 12 1.760 2023 Meyer-Turku 8 1.348 2024 Meyer total 20 3.108 2024 MV Werften 6 533 2022 Waigaoqiao 2 267 2024 China Merchants 5 40 2022 Crist / Ulstein 2 .. 2021 Kleven Verft 3 63 2020 Uljanik 2 33 2020 Brodosplit 3 ~30 2020 Barreras 1 24 2020 WestSea 3 28 2021 Regarding the fast growing fleet, it’s good to see that no shipyard worldwide is able to built large cruise ships for thousands of passengers without experience. The Japanese and the Koreans have tried it or were about to do it but had no success. The Chinese are not timid to spend much time and money and have announced to enter the business, which is the last domain of the Europeans, but not immediately. They know that they do not have the required supplier industry, which contributes all the high quality interiors which are needed for a luxury design. They can’t deliver a complete ship at a much lower price if they have to buy the costly interiors in Europe. Moreover, only a few European shipyards have experience with the correct installation of all these components which to acquire and install in a trial and error system is extremely costly and time consuming. No wonder that they calculate several years until the first delivery of a big cruise ship. Fincantieri who contributes to several cruise ship projects in China is of great assistance for the chinese Industry. The Europeans can only hope that the Chinese market needs many cruise ships that keep shipbuilders busy for several years. It will not be a European domain forever. Hätten Sie’s gewusst? ? HANSA Quiz Die HANSA bekommt ein + HANSA International Maritime Journal – 156. Jahrgang – 2019 – Nr. 3 35