P&O Cruises say they will introduce the 2001 built Royal Princess of 30,300 gross tons on the UK market as Adonia in 2011, the same year as the currently smallest unit of the fleet, the 44,588 gross ton Artemis that was built in 1984, bows out to assume a new lease of life in Germany.
This is good news - on two accounts. Firstly, it means that the largest cruise brand in the UK will retain one small ship in its fleet of seven ships. Next April, the company will introduce the 115,000 gross ton Azura that is currently under construction in Italy: this is a slightly modified version of the 2008 built Ventura and the second Post-Panamax ship in the P&O Cruises' fleet. The news about the sale of Artemis suggested that the company might opt for operating large vessels only, while the decision to introduce Adonia means that this will clearly not be the case.
Secondly, the time is right for Artemis to go. When built as the original Royal Princess of Princess Cruises in 1984, the ship was hailed as revolutionary as a quarter of its 600 cabins had a private balcony. Indeed, the ship set a benchmark in design of layout that is used in most vessels under construction even today, a quarter of a century later.
However, while the cabins on Artemis are better than on virtually any other ship built at that time and certainly if compared to vessels of the same size, the public rooms have always been a weak spot of that ship.
When introducing Artemis, P&O Cruises wanted a ship that has a small ship feel after it had sold the Victoria of 28,891 gross ton in 2002 that had started life as Kungsholm in 1966. In terms of size, Artemis was not at all a bad choice. However, with just a show lounge forward, a secondary lounge in the stern and a two deck atrium with an admittedly very nice bar midships on its principal deck of public rooms, it never had any feling of cosiness. Rather, the large but low public rooms have an awful lot in common with cruise ferries built for Baltic trades at the same time by the same Finnish yard that produced Artemis.
Adonia, meanwhile, is one of the eight R-class vessels built in France for the now defunct Renaissance Cruises at the turn of the millennium. The interiors in general and the public rooms in particular, by the Scottish architect McNeece, are hugely superior to those on Artemis. Perhaps inspired by the film Titanic that was released when these ships were on the drawing board, McNeece created elegant fin-de-siecle interiors that had not been seen on a new ship for decades. In fact, the style that sought inspiration from historic country houses and grand hotels of the Victorian era had gone out of fashion already in 1927, when the French Line introduced Ile de France, one of the first and certainly one of the grandest ships with Art Deco interiors.
Adonia has the feeling of cosiness that P&O Cruises want to offer: the choice of public rooms is better, they are of far superior design, including an outstandinly elegant library that has a dome that gives it double deck height. Add gym and spa facilities that are surprisinly extensive for a ship of that size, this should be precisely the right kind of ship P&O Cruises need for this particular segment of the market.
The decision to introduce Adonia is a welcome one: I am personally interested in sailing on this ship in due time.
Wednesday 9 December 2009
Monday 7 December 2009
On the secular religion of global warming
This afternoon, I happened to listen to a news broadcast of a commercialradio station in the UK. In a report on the UN conference on global warming that starts in Copenhagen today, they interviewed a female delegate, who sobbed in tears that she hopes for concrete results from the conference for the sake of her children.
If proposals already made by IMO, the UN's maritime organisation, will go through as planned, from 2016 onwards, ships trading in a region that starts at the mouth of the English Channel and covers the North Sea and the Baltic, must switch to use bunkers with lower sulphur contents than what are used today. That will cost almost twice as much as the current bunkers. In my native Finland, this will add 700 million euro to the annual transport costs of the industry. Clearly, the female delegate should see concrete results from efforts to tackle global warming well within her lifetime.
Of course, 700 million euro is a cheap price to pay if the other alternative is the destruction of all life an earth due to global warming. However, that is far from sure. While I shall not dwell much deeper in why I do not believe in global warming as it is presented to the public, I shall dwell a bit on the implications of these alleged changes.
This weekend, a British government minister called skeptcis of global warming "flat earth people," i.e. reactionaries who cannot see the light of truth. From my univerisity days I recall that skepticism should lead all science. Not here: theories backing global warming have become a subject that are beyond criticism. A fundamentalist doctrine has been adopted by Her Majesty's government, which at the same same time is deploying 500 more of Her Majesty's forces to fight fundamentalism of another kind in Afghanistan.
If the proposals tabled by IMO do take effect as planned, then ports like Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp may see significant drop in business, while ones like Liverpool and Lisbon that are outside the region in question could benefit even significantly.
So, why have things gone this deplorable way? I do not have a complete answer to this, but what I can say is that the media has helped a great deal. As the example of the female delegate in Copenhagen shows, reporting facts has not mattered to the media for a long time. Rather, what stirs up emotion is news.
Computer generated images of disasters caused by global warming are very televisual. And as the internet is causing the break up of audiences in the more traditional form of the electronic media and sharp falls in newspaper sales, no wonder they look for topics that grab the public's attention and stir up emotion. Fear is a strong emotion and fits this purpose very well. It, quite simply, helps the media houses to remain in business.
Swine flu is another example of this. It too has a maritime link: both Richard Fain and Micky Arison counted the cost of the outbreak as cruise passengers took fright and did not turn up. And again, the media carried reports that reminded the public of the Spanish flu that killed millions in 1918-19.
We have not seen such death rates in case of the swine flu and it may well be that we never will. But the media has had a field day with this topic as well.
These are interesting times, to say the least! While I do not believe in global warming as it is presented by theorists, I do believe that people have a need for some kind of religion. Since the 16th century, science gradually eroded the position Christianity had enjoyed in the minds of Europeans for the previous 1500 years.
Global warming has become a matter that falls into the category of religion rather than that of science. A commuter that cycles to work past a wind farm is a prophet of salvation, while another commuter, this time in a SUV driving alone in his car past a conventional power station, is a prophet of the devil.
Theory of global warming has turned from science to a secular religion. Why? Because there is money in fear - of global warming, swine flu, the millennium bug, the prophesies of the Club of Rome...
If proposals already made by IMO, the UN's maritime organisation, will go through as planned, from 2016 onwards, ships trading in a region that starts at the mouth of the English Channel and covers the North Sea and the Baltic, must switch to use bunkers with lower sulphur contents than what are used today. That will cost almost twice as much as the current bunkers. In my native Finland, this will add 700 million euro to the annual transport costs of the industry. Clearly, the female delegate should see concrete results from efforts to tackle global warming well within her lifetime.
Of course, 700 million euro is a cheap price to pay if the other alternative is the destruction of all life an earth due to global warming. However, that is far from sure. While I shall not dwell much deeper in why I do not believe in global warming as it is presented to the public, I shall dwell a bit on the implications of these alleged changes.
This weekend, a British government minister called skeptcis of global warming "flat earth people," i.e. reactionaries who cannot see the light of truth. From my univerisity days I recall that skepticism should lead all science. Not here: theories backing global warming have become a subject that are beyond criticism. A fundamentalist doctrine has been adopted by Her Majesty's government, which at the same same time is deploying 500 more of Her Majesty's forces to fight fundamentalism of another kind in Afghanistan.
If the proposals tabled by IMO do take effect as planned, then ports like Hamburg, Rotterdam and Antwerp may see significant drop in business, while ones like Liverpool and Lisbon that are outside the region in question could benefit even significantly.
So, why have things gone this deplorable way? I do not have a complete answer to this, but what I can say is that the media has helped a great deal. As the example of the female delegate in Copenhagen shows, reporting facts has not mattered to the media for a long time. Rather, what stirs up emotion is news.
Computer generated images of disasters caused by global warming are very televisual. And as the internet is causing the break up of audiences in the more traditional form of the electronic media and sharp falls in newspaper sales, no wonder they look for topics that grab the public's attention and stir up emotion. Fear is a strong emotion and fits this purpose very well. It, quite simply, helps the media houses to remain in business.
Swine flu is another example of this. It too has a maritime link: both Richard Fain and Micky Arison counted the cost of the outbreak as cruise passengers took fright and did not turn up. And again, the media carried reports that reminded the public of the Spanish flu that killed millions in 1918-19.
We have not seen such death rates in case of the swine flu and it may well be that we never will. But the media has had a field day with this topic as well.
These are interesting times, to say the least! While I do not believe in global warming as it is presented by theorists, I do believe that people have a need for some kind of religion. Since the 16th century, science gradually eroded the position Christianity had enjoyed in the minds of Europeans for the previous 1500 years.
Global warming has become a matter that falls into the category of religion rather than that of science. A commuter that cycles to work past a wind farm is a prophet of salvation, while another commuter, this time in a SUV driving alone in his car past a conventional power station, is a prophet of the devil.
Theory of global warming has turned from science to a secular religion. Why? Because there is money in fear - of global warming, swine flu, the millennium bug, the prophesies of the Club of Rome...
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