It’s difficult to imagine just how quickly and efficiently a shipyard can actually produce a cruise ship. Cruise ships are often built as a series of similar vessels and as such known as a ‘class’. Examples of this would include Holland America’s ‘vista class’, Celebrity Cruises ‘solstice class’ or most...
It’s difficult to imagine just how
quickly and efficiently a shipyard can
actually produce a cruise ship.
Cruise ships are often built as a series
of similar vessels and as such known as
a ‘class’.
Examples of this would include
Holland America’s ‘vista class’,
Celebrity Cruises ‘solstice class’ or most
recently Royal Caribbean’s ‘oasis class’
of ships.
The first vessel in a new class takes
the longest to develop as it is the
prototype where every minute detail
has to be considered and any problems
that arise have to be resolved before
progressing.
Preliminary studies and designs can
take two years or more before any
building can begin but once the
prototype has been successfully
launched successive ‘sister’ ships can be
built a lot faster with generally only
internal changes made to differentiate
vessels within the same class.
From a pile of steel plates, a shipyard
will build a ship using computer
generated drawings and using modern
construction methods, that would have
made life a lot easier for Christopher
Columbus!
Large sections of a ship are built in
workshops and then precisely welded
together like building blocks followed
by the internal fitting out.
For every detail that is visible to cruise
passengers whilst they are enjoying the
finished product, there has been an
incredible amount of work put into the
development behind the scenes and
‘below the surface’.
All this generally goes un-noticed as
cruise lines strive to deliver the best
value holiday around – cruising!
