Page 10: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (July 2000)

Investment in Design have been handled and contained have demonstrated the effectiveness of new standards designed to protect passen- gers. But several speakers at the London conference alluded to the fact that quite a number of recent years' emergencies involving large cruise vessels had taken place in calm weather, during daylight, and with SAR facilities and other ships close to hand.

The 'what might have been factor' in conjunction with the considerable tech- nical and operational challenges pre- sented by safely controlling and dis- patching floating communities of poten- tially 5,000 or more people from a stricken vessel call for all safety-related issues and legislation to be revisited.

The International Maritime Organiza- tion's secretary-general William O'Neil has his finger on the pulse. In the imme- diate run-up to the IMO's Maritime

Safety Committee meeting in London during the latter part of May, O'Neil suggested at the conference that a dedi- cated working group be established to examine all safety issues relating to pas- senger ships. Cognizant of major fleet development, reflected in huge invest- ments in luxury cruise liners of unprece- dented size, the secretary-general's pro- posal was colored by a perceived need for a more coordinated and holistic approach to the safety of such vessels, particularly as regards emergency situa- tions. O'Neil said "the safety of recent- ly-built cruise ships is not in doubt, nor is there concern as to whether such ships conform with the most recently adopted safety standards applicable to ships of this category." Rather, he felt that

SOLAS and Load Line Convention requirements warranted review to iden- tify whether or not the edicts need enhancing, given the evolution in ship size and complexity, and whether they duly address all safety aspects of opera- tions, especially emergencies.

He also advocated an assessment of the STCW (Standards of Training, Cer- tification and Watchkeeping) Conven- tion in the same light. Douglas Ward, president of The Maritime Evaluations

Group, calculated that the world fleet of cruise ships carrying more than 1,000 passengers numbered 80 vessels in ser- vice as of mid-May this year, including 50 of more than 50,000-gt, of which four were in excess of 100,000-gt. Ward predicted that the population of cruise vessels above the 50,000-gt mark will have swelled to 127 by the end of 2005, on the basis of confirmed shipbuilding contracts, and that 18 of these will mea- sure more than 100,000-gt.

A podded future

One of the most notable aspects of the new generation of RoPax ferries, which could secure the immediate future of shipbuilding in Northern Ireland is the selection of electric propulsion using podded drives. Furthermore, unlike the vast majority of pods ordered to date for cruise liners, offshore vessels, icebreak- ers and other types, the favored system is based on water-cooled rather than air- cooled propulsors. The significance of this is the additional space-saving ren- dered within the ship's aft-end, a vital consideration in RoRo vessels where efficient stern loading and discharge is critical to fast-turnaround performance.

Formalization of Harland & Wolffs contract for a series of 625-ft. (190 m)

RoRo passenger vessels, employing a

Norwegian-developed, 27-knot ship design, would provide a new reference for all-German technology manifested in the Siemens-Schottel Propulsor (SSP). While the Azipod and Mermaid outboard electric drives have set the

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