Holland America Line took delivery of Rotterdam today, July 30, 2021, officially making it the 11th ship in the fleet. A handover ceremony took place at Fincantieri’s Marghera shipyard in Italy the evening of July 29. The ceremony was attended by the ship’s master, Captain Werner Timmers, and Cyril Tatar, Holland America Group’s vice president of newbuilding services. Giuseppe Bono, CEO, Fincantieri, and several other executives also attended. Video congratulations were extended by Jan Swartz, president of Holland America Group, and Gus Antorcha, president of Holland America Line. “Rotterdam looks ...

Australia, a country with one of the highest penetration of any cruise market globally outside the US, has seen its bunker fuel consumption plummet due to restrictions on entry and sailings of cruise ships, pressuring the country’s refiners further as they grapple with demand constraints for other oil products due to the global coronavirus pandemic. VLSFO sales have dropped between 30% and 50% since the global coronavirus pandemic forced cruises to cease operations there from March last year, market sources told S&P Global Platts. The demand for HSFO bunker fuel ...

Piraeus, Greece’s largest port and one of the biggest in the Mediterranean, is looking to a promising cruise tourism season, Piraeus Port Authority S.A. (PPA) Deputy CEO Captain Weng Lin told an industry conference in Athens on Tuesday, citing “very positive” trend in berth bookings. Addressing the biennial Posidonia Sea Tourism Forum, held online this year, Weng said that as of Tuesday, over 400 cruise arrivals have been planned for this year. “The trend in berth bookings from what we have in hand for this year is very positive, even ...

Europe’s biggest cruise companies have already deployed 18 vessels in the East Med and other European destinations and plan to ramp up their operations with 28 ships in June and 50 in July, before reaching this summer’s maximum target of 60 operational cruise ships in August. More than half of these vessels will be deployed in Greek waters according to Ioannis Plakiotakis, Minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy whose speech marked the official opening of this year’s digital Posidonia Sea Tourism Forum. “Forty cruise ships are expected to operate ...

Recently updated cruise guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides a more concrete path to potentially resuming some US cruises in July, which would help stabilize cruise port financial performance and ratings, Fitch Ratings says. Port revenues from cruise operations declined sharply over the last year in the US, with cruise ports recovery at a standstill. Cruise ports have not been collecting revenues from normally stable cruise operations for over a year now. While other leisure and travel sectors started to recover from coronavirus-driven slumps, the ...

Bureau Veritas (BV), a world leader in testing, inspection, and certification (TIC), has been contracted by Carnival Corporation & PLC the world’s largest leisure travel company with a fleet of 87 ships visiting over 700 ports around the world, to provide health and safety services to facilitate the return to cruising, protecting passengers and crew. The support provided, including verification of safety and hygiene measures, will be based upon the expertise and extensive experience built by Bureau Veritas in 2020 to address health protection and hygiene requirements on-board passenger ships. ...

Singapore currently accounts for a third of the world’s cruises its tourism body said on Wednesday, owing to the roaring success of its “cruises to nowhere” at a time of crisis in the industry globally. Cruises have yet to restart in many parts of the world after taking a beating from the coronavirus pandemic, with some of the earliest big outbreaks found on cruise ships. The city-state launched what it called “round trips” on luxury liners in November, which have no port of call and last only a few days. ...

Cruise industry was expected to reach 32 million passengers in 2020 globally, comparatively with 30 million passengers on the previous year. More passengers, bigger cruise lines. But then the forecasts have been negatively overtaken by Covid-19 pandemic, following the social distancing measures and travel restrictions. Cruise industry was the travel sector, which has been particularly badly hit and nearly devastated. Most of the Cruise Lines have decided to lay their ships at anchor, selling or scraping the older ones. Their revenues were nearly zero for months, so they have adopted ...

Debut contract with Dutch luxury yacht builder Oceanco on Azipod® technology installation project paves the way for broader cooperation on sustainable electric propulsion in a market expected to exceed $10 billion by 2025. Specified for a superyacht built to the highest sustainability standards, ABB’s integrated project scope covers the supply of two 2.5 MW Azipod® units, together with propulsion drives and controls. The Azipod® system is well-known for superior fuel efficiency and maneuverability over conventional setups across a broad variety of vessel types from cruise ships to tankers and ferries. ...

Confidence in the safety of cruise shipping and the economic impact of Coronavirus on potential demand will challenge the industry’s attempts at a full 2021 recovery, according to leading research and forecasting consultancy Maritime Strategies International. In its latest biannual report*, MSI notes that even with leading industry players keen to publicise advance ticket sales and enquiries as evidence of pent-up demand and with vaccines becoming available, it will take some time to rebuild confidence in the sector despite enhanced safety protocols and fewer passengers onboard. Of greater concern, however, ...

Today, the Schulte Group has announced the acquisition of Rescompany Systems Ltd. (Resco), a leading provider of advanced hospitality software solutions to the cruise industry. With its integrated ship to shore software systems, Resco is a perfect match and ideal addition to the services offered by Schulte Group member and digital technology company MariApps Marine Solutions (MariApps). Together, the two companies will be able to offer a comprehensive range of maritime solutions and state-of-the-art shipboard and office-based management systems on CLOUD and data analytics to the growing cruise sector. “Despite ...

A significant challenge when building a new superyacht is to fulfil the owner’s wish for a custom boat without spending large amounts of time and money on designing and building a hull from scratch. An innovative yacht platform concept Jeroen Jungschlager, Project Manager at C-Job, shares the company’s experience: “With our Northern European shipyard clients in the yacht building industry, we saw engineering design was taking quite a long time for each yacht. We had the idea that it could be improved and the process speeded up. Platforms are not ...

The lifting of the CDC’s ‘No-Sail Order’ puts cruise shipbuilding back on track and activities at resin applications specialist Bolidt have quickly ramped up in response. In what represents a significant step forward for the cruise industry, the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have given the green light for a phased resumption of passenger ship operations in the United States. Several cruise lines are now planning to relaunch in December, while others are set to follow in early 2021. With owners keen to deliver the best possible cruise ...

Daggerboards, once used only by the dinghy racing fraternity, are increasingly common in cruising boats. This is the insight of Travis McGarry, captain of the 66 foot, 22 ton Gunboat catamaran the Slim, an early convert to use Vesconite daggerboard bearings – the bearings which support these retractable daggerboards. McGarry describes how racing yacht technology is eventually adopted in cruising boats. Sailing enthusiasts, for instance, became familiar with daggerboards in the America’s Cup, where they were occasionally visible as competitors skimmed over the water at tremendous speeds. Thereafter, for performance ...

Overview At VesselsValue, our Trade platform allows us to measure demand for vessels through applying algorithms and analysis to satellite and terrestrial AIS vessel location data. This provides us with objective, real-time and historical data on Cruise ship activity, including stoppages, journeys and demand trends, at vessel, fleet and global level. On the 3rd February 2020, an outbreak of COVID-19 was reported on the Diamond Princess Cruise ship which was situated just off the Japanese coast. Over the next month, over 700 people tested positive and sadly 9 died. The ...