Everyone who has been cruising before knows the drill: We are talking about the muster safety drill! In case of emergency, proceed directly to your muster station.
But what if a ship stumbles upon an event that might normally throw things into pandemonium… and guests were able to essentially stay in their cabins as if nothing was happening?
As Fincantieri shipyard puts the final touches on the — set to be finished in late November — new improvements being applied might eventually mean just that, at least on the boutique cruise ships
The Game Changer
Passenger ships in operation today are subject to a vast array of regulations and standards covering every aspect of ship construction and operation. A number of incidents over the years have led to improvements in safety requirements, including those relating to fire safety measures - such as escape routes and fire protections systems for the large atrium typical of cruise ships - and life-saving appliances and arrangements.
According to Passenger Ship Technology, Seabourn Encore has been designed with “higher-than-required passenger comfort” in terms of what is known as SOLAS Safe Return to Port (SRtP) circumstances.
While such circumstances generally result in passengers being moved to one or two safe areas where they can be provided with very basic comforts. But Fincantieri’s merchant ship business unit project manager, Guido Checchinato, explaines how Encore is raising the bar.
“The owner,” he shares, “wanted to guarantee a higher level of comfort for passengers, even in the event of failure.” As a result, this means many more services will remain not only functional but available for guests. “In addition to the SRtP requirements, the elevators and all the toilets — not just one toilet for every 50 passengers, as expected by SRtP for the safe areas — will be in service.”
Is This The Direction Cruising Is Going?
While these improvements would hypothetically mean that in certain types of emergencies, guests would be essentially unimpeached, it’s doubtful this will become a common feature among cruise ships anytime soon. Why? Because size matters. Encore will come in at just over 40,000 gross tons as opposed to, Norwegian Breakaway, which weighs approximately 146,600 gross tons. The smaller vessel will carry about 600 passengers as opposed to the nearly 4,000 carried by the larger ship.
In order to provide the higher SRtP requirements, Encore is equipped with numerous redundancies and back-up systems which take up quite a bit of space. It would be hard, if at all possible, to reproduce those requirements on a ship the size of most conventional cruise ships.