How Big Is Too Big? Construction Of The World's Largest Cruise Ship

[BuoyJumper]

Just How Big Is TOO BIG?

Stan (EX-CG-GM) and I were talking about this the other day after his return from a cruise.  With the high profile of these mamoth cruise ships being built in this age how stable are they if taking heavy seas and strong winds abeam?  Then just this past week with strong winds in Palma de Mallorca, Spain the 1,092 foot long cruise ship MSC Fantasia broke away from her moorings, causing the gangway to collapse as passengers were boarding the vessel.  One elderly passenger was thrown into the sea but was quickly rescued by crew members and taken to hospital with a head injury.

 
  
My question to our forum members ... HOW BIG IS TOO BIG?  In the event of a castrophe at sea will the world's coast guards have the assets necessary to respond to a search and rescue of this magnitute?  Are the moorings at ports-of-call stout enough to hold these behemoths in the event of high winds?  



Construction photos of the Independence of the Seas being built in sections and welded together.

TURKU, FINLAND - On the forested coast of southern Finland, in the town of Turku, a brass band plays to a festive crowd gathered along the lip of a 1200-ft.-long, 50-ft.-deep hole. An antique cannon fires, its boom echoing off the colossal white cruise ship that looms up out of the dry dock. After a brief speech, a trio of dignitaries turns a valve. A stream of water gushes onto the floor of the pit far below. For the shipbuilders at Aker Yards, this “float-out” is a proud moment. Some 230 ft. longer than the Titanic, the 1112-ft. Independence of the Seas is an awesome behemoth, the third in a triplet of vessels that are the largest cruise ships in the world. For its owner, Royal Caribbean, the ship is an $800 million tour de force. But the Independence isn’t the most remarkable thing on display in the sprawling shipyard.

Even as the vessel is buoyed for the first time, its triumph is dwarfed by the pieces of an even larger leviathan, a $1.2 billion monster named Oasis of the Seas. The 1180-ft. Oasis represents the latest effort in an intense, decades-long race with other cruise lines to push the envelope in terms of how massively ships can be conceived and constructed. So far,the Oasis’s only rival will be its own sister ship, scheduled to launch a mere 11 months afterward. But the superlatives these ships have earned may not last long.

“The larger we build, the larger we’re able to build,” says Harri Kulovaara, executive vice president in charge of maritime construction at Royal Caribbean.

Original Article

[vftb]

What my vivid imagination ( ) sees is one of these floating cities being caught with the bow on the crest of one fifty foot swell and the stern being caught on the crest of the next fifty foot swell leaving mid-ships high and dry over the trough    1,180' is pretty close to 1/4 of a mile and could easily span two swell in a heavy sea.  Give me a 180' and I'll happily go down the back of one and up the face of the next (BTDT) 

[BuoyJumper]

Well you echo some of my concerns Hans.  We've learned for example in the Great Lakes with the Morrel and Fitzgerald sinkings where it appeared that the ships had their backs broken and the ship split in two sections.  So just how big to these ships have to be in the world's oceans before welds burst admidships and the ship breaks into two sections?  The stress amidships has to be astronomical.  Consider how the NSC has had to be strengthened amidships because of possible stress fractures.

The next ship being built the  MS Oasis of the Seas  is sixty feet longer.  The Independence of the Seas at present can accommodate 4,370 passengers served by 1,360 crew.  What coast guard will be prepared to handle an evac of almost 5,700 passengers and crew?

I don't want to sound like a prophet of doom and gloom ... but this is something for the USCG and other coast guards to consider.  I see these new ships as a catastrophe looking for a place to happen.   

[vftb]

If I remember correctly  , a scenario like I described was probably the demise of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

You got your post in on the Fitzgerald while I was typing Ron, but I'll reinforce it with mine to emphasize that this is not a fantasy scenario.

[LTGunner]

Everything's relative including size:

Carnival Triumph in Hurricane Isabel

[vftb]

    Great picture Gunner 

[BuoyJumper]

Gunner ... You know from your own experience on your 378 how much power mother nature can throw at you and the damage that can be done by the force of a wave.  That pic of the Triumph ... it's a wonder that all the ports/windows were'nt blown out by the force of the blow from the waves.

[LTGunner]

Gunner ... You know from your own experience on your 378 how much power mother nature can throw at you and the damage that can be done by the force of a wave.  That pic of the Triumph ... it's a wonder that all the ports/windows were'nt blown out by the force of the blow from the waves.

You're not kidding Ron, I still kick myself I didn't take a few pictures of the aftermath of the rouge wave(s) we encountered on CGC BOUTWELL.  Then again, that was the furthest of our concerns at that time....  Yes, a well placed wave CAN push a watertight door through its frame and take out a few firestations & liferings in the process!

[BuoyJumper]

I know BOUTWELL sustained some major damage from that rogue wave and I know other 378's in the early days encountered some problems with stress fractures and deck warpage in heavy seas.  I just can't see any coast guard being able to handle a major evac from one of these monsters.  I can't help but wonder what these cruise ships lines are thinking building these things so big.  Of course we know the bottom line for the cruise ships is money but at what cost?

 

[EX-CG-GM]

The ship I was on was 925'.  I think the Independence was in one of the ports we hit.  These suckers are HUGE!

What surprised me was how our 900+ ft ship pounded into the swells.  They were coming from just off the port bow and were maybe 6' swells.  Still, it was a collision every time.  Looking at the bow later I realized it doesn't cut through the water, the bow rapidly spreads outward to accomodate the maximum beam as soon as possible, so it is like pushing a brick.

[BuoyJumper]

Another thing I have noticed in posting CG SAR over the past couple of years is a marked increase in the number of medevacs the CG has conducted from cruise ships.  As these cruise ships get bigger I would imagine the number of medevacs we do will likewise increase.  In the last twelve months I have posted 26 SAR cases of medevacs just from these huge cruise ships.  That figure does not include all the medevacs from offshore oil rigs, barrier islands, commercial fishing vessels, private vessels, commercial tanker and freighters, Navy ships as well as our own assets.  The last quarter of last year and the first quarter of this year with two more weeks to go, have been particularly busy conducting over 17 medevacs from cruise ships.  

[vftb]

I have a feeling you're going to see a decrease in the near future for the wrong reason; the decline in the economy  .  Unless they really start giving bargain cruises there ain't that many that will be able to afford them 

[LTGunner]

Maybe the cruise industry should start using Ulstein X Bow design:

The Ulstein Group

[debk]

Gosh...I'm glad I made the mistake of reading this thread....

Margot and I are semi-planning on a Caribbean cruise mid-September to attend a wedding.....now I'm scared!!!!

[LTGunner]

Gosh...I'm glad I made the mistake of reading this thread....

Margot and I are semi-planning on a Caribbean cruise mid-September to attend a wedding.....now I'm scared!!!!

Deb, most of the weather events we've been through have been few & far between.  They just happen to be the most memorable after days of smooth sailing.  You and your travel mates will have a great time. 

Ships are built to withstand the seas.  Remember, when the weather got rough, we went to work.