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That said, many lines are moving ahead with long-established plans to add new, built-from-the-ground-up vessels over the next few years. Sadly, many cruise ships have had their lives cut short due to the pandemic. “For the most part, they could have all been kept in service for several more years but without the demand and with the overhead being so high, they had no choice and had to begin paring down their fleets. If the pandemic continues for much longer, what we have seen thus far is only the beginning of a much larger purge.” While things may look bleak for the travel and cruise industry now, there’s still a bit of hope. Global Dream II and its sister ship Global Dream – which is not being scrapped for now – would have been the world’s largest cruise ships by passenger capacity when complete.
Photos of abandoned, stripped cruise ships show how deeply the cruise industry is sinking
While the ship has since been stripped of all valuables by locals, it remains a popular tourist destination. Many adventurers and explorers travel out to the site of the abandoned MS World Discoverer to photograph the remaining hull. In cases where a cruise ship capsized, even surfacing the ship can prove astronomically expensive and prohibitively difficult if the sinking occurred in an economically underprivileged region. In other words, local authorities and scrapping specialists could lack the capabilities to surface such a massive and heavy vessel. In these cases, the ship would simply lay in a state of abandonment where it was capsized. However, in rare cases, retrieving and scraping a cruise ship may not be economically viable, especially if transporting that ship to a scrap yard would prove to be too expensive and complicated.
Carnival Fantasy
"Asbestos, which was largely banned in the '80s, was once the greatest concern," Knego said, when asked about the environmental implications of scrapping cruise ships. The largest is Alang, located in India's Gulf of Khambhat, which recycles more than half of the world's decommissioned cruise ships. At 208,000 tons they would have been jointly the sixth largest cruise ships by size, just behind Royal Caribbean’s five Oasis-class ships. How safe it is to explore an abandoned cruise ship will depend entirely upon the ship’s condition. While some are maintained in a way that allows them to act as tourist attractions, others are in a state of deterioration and disrepair that would make them extremely dangerous to ill-equipped explorers.
From left to right, they are: the Queen Mary 2, Aurora, Arcadia, Britannia, Azura, and the Queen Victoria.
Renamed the Blue Lady, the last months of one of the greatest ocean liners ever built were mired in controversy, with claims the ship was riddled with asbestos. Despite a series of lawsuits by environmentalists, the liner was eventually broken up on Alang beach in Gujarat in 2008. Olsen's newly retired Black Watch and Boudicca, which the line has replaced with two former Holland America ships (see the Holland America section above), is in doubt.
Oceana
On April 30th of 2000, the World Discoverer was sailing through the Sandfly Passage in the Solomon Islands when she struck an uncharted rock or reef. Captain Oliver Kruess heroically nursed the listing liner into shallow Roderick Bay in the Florida Islands, where all aboard were safely evacuated. The World Discoverer, however, remains where it was beached in 2000, stripped of anything valuable by local islanders. Regarding smaller ships, like ferries and fishing vessels, abandoned hulls are far more common, as the scrap value of these types of crafts is significantly less. In these cases, removing them is not always economically viable or practical.
Norwegian Cruise passengers spend $5,000 trying to reboard ship after being 'abandoned' on African island - Yahoo Singapore News
Norwegian Cruise passengers spend $5,000 trying to reboard ship after being 'abandoned' on African island.
Posted: Tue, 02 Apr 2024 14:57:03 GMT [source]
Where Cruise Ships Are Sent to Die
An example for an abandoned cruiser is MV World Discoverer - which struck a reef off Florida Islands (Solomon Islands) in 2000. The vessel under its own power arrived at Roderick Bay where was abandoned near the beach. Although Knego said some military ships and small freighters have been purposefully sunk for use as artificial reefs, it's an expensive practice that requires vessels to be removed of all harmful substances.
The eight ships in the series began debuting in 1990 and for many years were the workhorses of the Carnival fleet, helping the brand grow from a small line into the cruising colossus that it is today. Facing a huge drop in revenue due to the cruising hiatus and spiraling financial losses, many of the world's biggest cruise lines over the past year have shed a significant number of ships from their fleets in what amounts to permanent downsizing. There are also strict environmental precautions that must be taken to avoid the leaking of fuel and other toxic chemicals that could pollute the water and cause harm to marine life.
Empress of the Seas
Now, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to devastate the cruise industry, companies are downsizing their fleets and selling the ships for scrap. As ships age, cruise lines have several choices, which include extensively refurbishing and relocating vessels to smaller, less popular regions; transferring or selling them to other lines; or sending them to a cruise ship junkyard for scrapping. Ultimately, all ships will be retired and scrapped, with the exception of a few beloved vessels, like Queen Mary, which are turned into hotels or attractions.
Pride of Kent ferry
Measuring just 57,000 tons, it was part of the same Statendam Class to which Maasdam belonged, although it held slightly more passengers -- 1,350 at double occupancy. Like Carnival Fantasy, Carnival Fascination was a Fantasy Class ship built in the 1990s. For many years, it sailed for Carnival out of San Juan, Puerto Rico, though it originally debuted in New York. It had been scheduled to replace the Carnival Fantasy in Mobile, Alabama, next year. "There are higher standards today, but the beach [in Alang] is still rather toxic with PCBs, leaked fuel, paint and other toxic substances. The amount varies from yard to yard and how environmentally conscious the specific breakers are. In short, unless the abandoned ship is serving as an organized and legal tourist attraction, it is unlikely that exploring it would be lawful or safe.
Some cruise ships also have crew talent shows, which can presumably be more regulated. These days, most North American cruise ships have banned topless sunbathing altogether. Carnival Cruise Line has eliminated all of its topless sunbathing spots onboard its cruise ships.
Tired of endless sunbathing, souvenir hunting and sipping cocktails on the beach? Then you might want to add a trip to Koh Chang’s abandoned cruise ship to your to-do list to find out what the hype about this mysterious place is all about. Like people, ocean liners often find it hard to make the transition from work to retirement. For these ships the future is, all too easily and literally, the scrapheap.
This is because cruise ships are often constructed of materials that can contaminate marine environments over time. This is particularly true of older vessels regularly made with hazardous materials like asbestos and lead. We don’t need to introduce you to this once iconic vessel, which now remains abandoned and hollow in Philadelphia. SS United States was built in 1951 and departed on her maiden voyage in 1952 for United States Lines.
Although scrapyards attempt to follow local regulations, there's still quite a bit of contamination that can happen throughout the scrapping lifecycle. Demand for cruise ships has collapsed since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Scuttling (deliberate ship sinking) is conducted by allowing seawater to flow into the vessel's hull. This can be done by opening the vessel's hatches to the water, by creating holes into the hull or by using explosives (in some cases even bombing the vessel or gunning it from distance, using it as a shooting target by military ships). Scuttling is usually performed on abandoned or captured vessels, and mainly to prevent them to become a navigation hazard.
However, the shipbuilder MV Werften filed for bankruptcy in January 2022 and the administrators cannot find a buyer for Global Dream II. "Most go under their own power if their engines still function," Knego said. "A few are towed, which presents more of a challenge since [workers] must ensure the tug doesn't get stuck, too. Plus tugs can't muster the speed and power to get the ships as far up the beach." An unobstructed section was then used for an onboard driving range where guests could hit golf balls right into the ocean. The wooden horses were auctioned early on in the cruise to those who wanted to complete in the derby.
"If they have full tanks before going to the anchorage, they will be able to run at lower power output for many weeks if not months without having to refuel." You’ll find the abandoned Galaxy Cruise ship at the very southern tip of Koh Chang past Bang Bao Bay towards Bang Bai Beach. Some say the owners simply ran out of money to properly maintain such a massive resort or didn’t get the paperwork right so were forced to leave.
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