Future of Cruise Ships

Discussion in 'All Things Boats & Boating' started by rasorinc, May 27, 2015.

  1. rasorinc
    Joined: Nov 2007
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    Location: OREGON

    rasorinc Senior Member

  2. ImaginaryNumber
    Joined: May 2009
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    Location: USA

    ImaginaryNumber Imaginary Member

  3. PAR
    Joined: Nov 2003
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    Location: Eustis, FL

    PAR Yacht Designer/Builder

    Stan, you'd be incorrect in that assumption. Sure a rouge can take out anything, including a Nimitz class, but considering both the Nimitz class and several of these large cruise ships, have eaten rogues and come home upright, maybe the NA's and design professionals have thought about these eventualities too. BTW, you'll never hear wave slap on these boats, not even if you put your ear against the hull.

    Schettino can't be hired as a captain again, though he's illegible, he'll still be serving his 10 years for manslaughter, plus the 5 for varying from known navigation and the 1 year for abandonment. I suspect these sentences are concurrent, so it's possible he'll be on parole in 2020, but it's unlikely he'll be considered, even if illegible. Personally, I think Schettino was simply a quick and easy scapegoat, so light wouldn't be shed on the obvious inappropriate safety procedures, absurd evacuation process, poor communications procedures and failed equipment and technical issues, that would have cost a whole lot more than the law suits and lose of a ship. A business decision was made and Schettino was asked to fall on his sword to save the company further costs. He may or may not have done this willingly, but look who's handling his appeals . . .
     
  4. Rurudyne
    Joined: Mar 2014
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    Rurudyne Senior Member

    A commodious and comfortable ship ... it's what it takes to really, if you'll pardon the expression, stay afloat when competing for the vacation budget.

    Sadly it seems like actually attractive liners, or at least big ones, are a thing of the past: can't pack them in with the malls and waterparks like these can.
     
  5. redreuben
    Joined: Jan 2009
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    Location: South Lake Western Australia

    redreuben redreuben

    Reminds me of the livestock carriers that visit Fremantle.

    Baaaah !
     
  6. snowbirder

    snowbirder Previous Member

    Spending as much time driving across the MacArthur Causeway as I do in the winters, I just assumed this was what all the cruise ships looked like these days. :)

    I see this boat all the time.
     
  7. Mr Efficiency
    Joined: Oct 2010
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    Mr Efficiency Senior Member

    You imagine these ships use high-tech weather and sea condition forecasting to avoid the worst of conditions that might endanger them, or even produce a large number of passengers muttering "never again", but the business model of running to strict schedules and fast turn-arounds in-port, to embark a fresh load of paying passerngers, might clash with that.
     

  8. daiquiri
    Joined: May 2004
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    Location: Italy (Garda Lake) and Croatia (Istria)

    daiquiri Engineering and Design

    You can add the complacency of the Coast guard who knew that maneuvers like the one he did have been routinely and regularly performed by cruise ships for many years before the accident happened.
    Wasn't it an interesting coincidence that a radio communication between Cmd. De Falco of the CG and Capt. Schettino, in which the first one came out as a heroic tough guy who fixes Schettino's mess, leaked to the media just a couple of days after the accident?

    Regarding the cruise ship in the OP - I remember that we have already discussed it's design somewhere in this forum. It was rightfully defined as one of the ugliest floating contraptions around. Looks like they needed to put some ballast forward to make it float even, so they came out to that black thing up there...

    In this case, and also to counterbalance the national shame of the Schettino affair, I can only say - Italians do it better. ;)

    Regarding the main theme of this thread, the future of cruise ships is currently evolving in two directions.
    - The first one is that of huge floating hotels with 20+ decks like, for example, the Royal Princess ( http://www.princess.com/learn/ships/rp/ ).
    - The other one is the top-luxury-class cruising ships like the Seabourn Encore ( http://encore.seabourn.com/ ) or Le Soleal ( http://en.ponant.com/Ships/Le-Soleal ).
    Both businesses have been flourishing over the last 10 yrs (regardless of the world economic crisis) and the specialized shipyards like Italian Fincantieri are working overtime to meet the deadlines.
     
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