It‘s kina freaking me out that this would freak people out. If you don’t believe shipyards can competently do something like this, how do you think big ships exist? You do know our everyday world owes its existence to millions and millions of competent experts succeeding at complex, difficult things 24/7, right?
I am a bit surprised, though, that it’s worth doing for a mere 15 meters of extra boatage.
I don’t disbelieve that it can be done; I’d just be more concerned about any variables that have to be taken into account across the entire ship to suit a given length not necessarily being retrofitted correctly; while a ship constructed at design length would presumably include those. Tacking in a new section also means adding two new joint areas(rarely the high point of any steel structure’s durability) that extend through the entire cross section of the ship; rather than potentially being staggered so that potentially vulnerable fasteners stay away from expected high stress spots.
I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if everything is fine and it goes on to live a long and boaty life until it’s time to retire to one of the hell-on-earth spots where shipbreaking is cheap; but I also wouldn’t be surprised if factory spec ships of length X are more durable than modded ships of length X, unless the latter take some weighty and costly precautions that aren’t palatable.
The problem becomes as much about stability than stress loads. I once worked on a seafood processing ship that was extended in length in a similar manner. What the owner(s) ended up with was a ship with increased rolling motion. Since it was a small factory ship, they resolved the problem by adding beam width, welding on a second blister hull running from where the bow flair ended to the stern. I think this is the same ship:
A more recent example of the hazards of lengthening a ship comes from the El Farro sinking. That didn’t end well.
Keep in mind that it’s 15m… and ten or so decks. Fair bit of square footage, really.
Me too, bro. Me too.
I know, right? It’d probably be comparable price-wise to just build another, smallish cruise ship.
The US Air Force had that done to their fleet of C-141As lengthening them and turning them into C141Bs
Plus it looks like they just nearly doubled the size of the pool.
This is something that has been done lots of times. Successfully.
This ship-
Was converted to this
Not only was a 120 foot section added to the middle, a whole additional deck level was added.
They did five of them, and they were in service another 30 years.
Historically, this is more commonly done to various kinds of cargo ships, but is not unheard of with cruise ships.
Ahhhh. Are they renaming it Titanic 2?
You can tell me all day long how many times this has been done before without incident but this new section is always going to be a failure point.
One would hope this addition will be disclosed to potential passengers.
And notice it wasn’t used to carry people…
Here’s another copy of that video that starts earlier, so that you can see the dry dock, with the mixture of fixed and sliding support prepositioned, get flooded. In he overview at 0:07 you can see sliding support like the one seen in action at 1:19
Perhaps we can assume that the hubris of shipbuilders will never fully recover from the fate of the Titanic…
But then again, Hitler was supposed to serve a similar function in the political sphere, so…
Pricewise, no. That section of ship contains staterooms, but not much else. It won’t need its own power plant, its own sewers and water tanks, bridge, radar, etc.
The reason why they’re stretching it and not buying a second boat is the same reason they keep building cruise ships bigger and bigger. These things run on economies of scale that we mortals can barely envision. If it was your ship, would you want to pay the salaries of two sets of engineers, two sets of bridge crews, two sets of executive chefs, two sets of everything and everyone on board, or do you want to add 15% more of the ordinary line staff to the existing ship? Every extra passenger that doesn’t cause the ship owner to hire a new set of management or build an extra set of amenities nets them a much higher profit than the same passenger on a separate ship.
If the ship is aging well (they have a finite lifetime), and as long as the rest of the ship’s infrastructure can handle the additional passengers (sewer, water, food, crew, etc.,), the ship is probably 30-40% more profitable as a result of the additional 15% in ticket sales.
A critical part of the new section was berthing and other facilities for nearly 200 Marines.
The new addition is the area between the lines:
But wouldn’t it have been significantly cheaper to buy a bigger boat in the first place? What CHANGED to make them think that a bigger ship made more sense now than when the ship was originally ordered? Because adding a plug HAS to be less efficient than buying it that size in the first place.
Edited to add: I guess if you were going from Panamax to New Panamax, but I don’t think very many cruise ships go through the panama canal.
The high seas are mysterious as they are immense. People see things out there, and it changes them. One day you’re looking out onto the ocean and it dawns on you: you’re going to need a bigger boat.
