Space odyssey

In a bold engineering move, Royal Caribbean adds to its fleet by slicing the Enchantment of the Seas in two and inserting a 73-foot-long addition.

By ROBERT N. JENKINS
Published June 5, 2005

	[Image courtesy of Royal Caribbean International]
	An artist’s rendering shows what the pool area will look like after the renovation is complete.
	Go to photo gallery with graphic
	[Photo: Ruud Van Leeuwen]
	The new 6.17-million-pound section of the Enchantment of the Seas was moved more than 1,200 miles in a week by barge from Turku, Finland, to the shipyard in the Netherlands.

ROTTERDAM, the Netherlands - The captain overseeing the project compared it to "a big Swiss watch, when everything has to come together."

The cruise line executive said it was like "playing with Legos, but big Legos."

The managing director of the shipyard where it happened said accomplishing it was in no small part due to using special computer software.

And so, with the efforts of about 1,000 workers in two nations, a 73-foot-long, 6.17-million-pound "Lego" has been inserted into the cruise ship Enchantment of the Seas.

Actually the cruise line and shipyard officials were talking about a midsection that adds 151 cabins and some entertainment and dining options to the 8-year-old Enchantment. The cost is about $60-million, according to Harri Kulovaara, an executive vice president for ship owner Royal Caribbean International.

When first launched in 1997, Enchantment cost $300-million, said Jaye Hilton, Royal Caribbean spokeswoman. To build a ship of this size today with the additional 151 cabins would cost about $450-million, she said.

The $60-million includes building the hull and the cabins of the 144-foot-tall, 106-foot-wide midsection, making top-deck changes on the Enchantment to increase the size of the pool deck, and adding a new steakhouse and a Latin-flavored lounge to the existing ship.

It also includes floating the massive section on a barge across 1,252 miles of open sea, from Turku, Finland, to the Keppel Verolme shipyard outside central Rotterdam.

That took just a week, though when it began April 24, "The ice in the Baltic Sea had melted only two weeks earlier," said George Julin, president of Aker Finnyards. That company and its predecessors had already built 11 vessels for Royal Caribbean and also handled its two previous lengthening projects.

Julin estimated that 1,000 workers in about 10 companies had some part in either creating the midsection, moving it from Finland or inserting it.

The lengthening, thought to be just the 10th of a cruise ship in the past quarter century, was necessary because "We needed to add real estate" to the vessel, Kulovaara told reporters here to watch part of the process.

"The "audience' onboard is changing," he said. "Now there are people who want to do and see more. The average age is 42. These are active adults."

That's the reason Royal Caribbean, second-largest cruise company in the world, has added its trademark rock-climbing walls to all 19 of its ships and why four fitness stations are being added to the Enchantment's jogging deck.

The cost of increasing the number of passenger cabins from 975 to 1,126 (about 15 percent) is in line with the price of building that much of a new ship, Kulovaara said. But it would take more than two years to build an entire ship, whereas the Enchantment will have been out of service just two months by the time it finishes promotional sailings on the Eastern Seaboard.

And with the shrinking value of the dollar against the euro - most cruise ships are built in European yards - even with the loss of two months' revenue, the lengthening is far cheaper than creating a whole new vessel.

Kulovaara repeatedly declined to say how long it would take Royal Caribbean to recoup the cost. Estimates from trade press reporters and from Bob Cook, whose Altamonte Springs Go Travel agency sells between 9,000 and 10,000 cruise tickets a year, ranged from three to four years.

The immensity of the project - Kulovaara's "big Legos" - makes the technical achievement all the more remarkable.

The midsection arrived at the dry dock first and was moored alongside while the eight hydraulic jacks were attached to it. The bases of the jacks extended beyond the sides of the barge. Tugboats guided the Enchantment into the dry dock and four reflective stickers were placed at predetermined points on its hull. The stickers resembled bull's-eyes about 1.5 inches across.

A specially created computer software program kept the ship positioned above a series of previously placed devices, called skid tracks, that were under the centerline of the ship, said Harold W. M. Linssen, Keppel Verolme managing director. As water was pumped from the dry dock, infrared rays were flashed against the hull and the 916-foot-long ship's position was determined to be just 0.56 inch off the optimum position above the skid tracks on which the ship was to rest.

Using cables tied to the hull, dockside tractors repositioned the vessel, putting it within 0.25 inch of the optimum position, well within acceptable levels.

As the water was pumped from the dry dock, the bases of the hydraulic jacks attached to the midsection were lowered to the bottom of the dry dock. Then, the jacks lifted the midsection above its barge, which was then floated out. The rest of the water was pumped out and the dry dock was lowered onto its skids.

With the water gone and the midsection aligned, it was time to start cutting. Three sets of 16 workers, each on eight-hour shifts, took six days to cut through the ship's hull, a distance of 1,969 feet, from one side of deck 11 down and around the bottom and back up to the other side.

Gas-oxygen torches were used for this work, while within the ship, diamond-tipped circular saws cut through the deck floors.

It took about six hours, until nearly midnight May 23, to slide the 22.63-million pound, 427-foot-long foresection apart from the rear section. The weight of the vessel, positioned on the Teflon-coated pads of the skid track, was sufficient to keep it upright, though supports glided alongside it.

The move meant the midsection would have roughly 8.5 feet between it and each of the parts of the Enchantment, once the midsection was slid forward. That took about two hours the afternoon of May 24.

Rewelding the hull and the interior - putting the three parts of the ship together - was expected to take about 15 days. Other workers, meanwhile, were splicing more than 1,100 cables, connecting 120 pipes and joining 60 air ducts, and electricians and plumbers were doing finishing work in the new cabins.

Converting space on the existing ship into the new restaurant and bar, performing maintenance in the engine compartment and modernizing public areas required an average of 50 permits a day because of potential fire hazards. Consequently, Steve Ball, Royal Caribbean's safety officer, maintained security and fire safety crews on board throughout the entire process, and also staged prevention drills daily.

Overseeing all the work was Capt. Charles Teige, who already had overseen the building of three other Royal Caribbean vessels. Why spend his time watching a ship out of the water?

"I'm like a boy - I like to play with big toys," said Teige with a grin. "The ship is like a big Swiss watch, when everything has to come together: It has to strike 12 noon when your work is done, not five after or five of."

- Robert N. Jenkins can be reached at 727 893-8496 or jenkins@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 3, 2005, 18:07:49]