The cruise ships Celebrity Century, here for the first time last Tuesday, and Radiance of the Seas, on its third visit on Friday, have more than one thing in common. They are from two arms of the Royal Caribbean group and both were built in the covered, state-of-the-art shipbuilding facility of Jos L. Meyer Werft, at Papenburg, on the River Eems, 40km inland from the North Sea.
This name has been linked to shipbuilding there since 1795. Wooden vessels were built there until the first steel vessel was built in 1872. Today, the focus is on the building of luxury cruise ships.
The yard built its first cruise ship 27 years ago. This vessel, ordered by Homes Lines was laid down on September 29, 1984, and was launched as Homeric on September 28, 1985.
This ceremony was quite an occasion, for the 203.99m long hull was launched sideways into the River Eems, and at the time was the largest ship built on the river.
Delivered on May 6, 1986, the 42.092gt Homeric had berths for 1132 passengers. When the Holland America Line bought Homes Lines in 1988, the ship was renamed Westerdam. Lengthened by 39m in 1990, it passed within the Carnival group in 2002 to the Costa Line who operated it as Costa Europe, until it became Thomson Dream in April 2010.
The next cruise ship to be built there, in 1988, was the Crown Odyssey, a vessel that called in the 2007-08 season and back in lengthened form as Balmoral last February. The ship also had the distinction of being the first to be built under cover in its No 1 building dock.
Constructed in 1987 it was extended in 1990-91 to 370m in length. It has a width of 101.5m and a height of 60m. Even larger is the No 2 dock built 11 years ago. It has a length of 570m, is 125m wide and 75m high.
Vessels are assembled in the dry dock , basically following the Lego principle. Blocks weighing up to 800 tonnes and made up of eight sections, complete with cable tracks, plumbing and air-conditioning, are welded together to complete the new ship.
When the building dock is flooded and the new ship is afloat for the first time, the machinery is tested with zero propeller thrust.
The ship will then be towed to the North Sea, down the narrow River Eems, which has to be dammed for these passages.
And on those occasions, three times a year, thousands of spectators line the river to watch the spectacular transfer of the ship to the North Sea. Interesting that the yard which has 2500 employees, attracts about 300,000 visitors annually, a bigger audience than that of the world-renowned Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra .
The 90,090gt Radiance of the Seas was completed in March 2003, for Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, a company formed at Oslo on January 31, 1969, by Isak M, Skaugen and Anders Wilhelmsen.
Celebrity Century is a 70,706gt, 2156-berth vessel completed in November 1995, for Celebrity Cruises. As Century it was registered at Nassau until 2008, when it was transferred to the Maltese flag and had the prefix added to its name.
The vessel is the oldest and smallest in the Celebrity fleet which had been created in 1992 to reinvent Chandris Cruises of Greece (hence the X on the funnel) into the American market. It merged with Royal Caribbean in 1997.
Another Papenburg-built cruise ship seen here in the 2007-08 season was Celebrity's 76,522gt, 1997-built Mercury, which also called as the renamed Celebrity Mercury. And last March we had a visit from P&O's 76,152gt Aurora, which came from the yard in 2000.
Looking ahead to this time next year, I note that Celebrity Solstice is booked to make the first of seven visits. Completed on October 24, 2008, the 121,878gt, 2850-berth vessel was the first of four sister ships built at Papenburg for Celebrity Cruises. And with an overall length of 317m the vessel will become the port's longest visitor.
