Cruise Shipping Miami
Safety tops agenda for Cruise Shipping Miami
As the February fire on Carnival Triumph loomed over Cruise Shipping Miami, its panel of leading cruise line bosses discussed pertinent issues including safety, markets and upcoming regulations
WHEN seven heads of leading cruise lines discussed the industry’s current trends and future direction at Cruise Shipping Miami’s (CSM) “state of the industry” address, top of the agenda was the fire that had broken out on Carnival Triumph just a few weeks earlier. Carnival Cruise Lines’ president and
CEO Gerry Cahill provided an update on the investigation and used the conference to announce that Carnival Cruise Lines and its sister brands were launching a review following the aft engineroom fire. The ship has two independent
enginerooms but damage from the fire caused both to be knocked out of commission, Mr Cahill said. The emergency diesel generator had kicked in and provided power for emergency facilities until the ship was towed to Mobile, Alabama. The cause of the fire was a leak that had developed in the fuel return line, he explained and added that the ship’s fire suppression system and crew were able to contain and put it out. Following the fire a review of the
cruise operator’s fleet has been launched to learn from the incident and see what additional operational redundancies might be available. The review focuses on four areas:
prevention, detection and suppression of fires; engineroom redundancies; what additional hotel facilities might be provided that could run off emergency generators and changes that can be made and how these can be implemented. “I can assure you since this fire occurred it has been the number one priority for both Carnival Cruise Lines and Carnival Corporation,” Mr Cahill stressed.
www.passengership.info His words were backed up by
Christine Duffy, president of Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), who kickstarted the ‘state of the industry’ address. She said CLIA’s safety committee was conducting its own risk assessments following the incident and taking actions to improve redundancies. Royal Caribbean International
president and CEO Adam Goldstein confirmed that “we always try and learn as an industry form these things. We see now all brands coming together to try and learn lessons from this”. When questioned about concerns
that, from a safety point of view, the cruise industry was not sufficiently regulated, Mr Goldstein said that it is “usually at the forefront of inspiring regulatory change, for example the 10 different policy initiatives [launched by the Operational Safety Review following the Costa Concordia incident].” He predicted that it will continue to be at the forefront of efforts to develop safety policy, saying that, “over the decades, the overwhelming focus has been on safety of the ship” and its passengers, with continuous improvement in processes and investment leading to further improvements in the future. A focus of the panel was also
new markets. MSC Cruises’ CEO Pierfrancesco Vago singled out South America, although agreed that the region presented challenges. Its “strong, growing” middle classes had provided a boost for the industry, he said, but problems including a somewhat unstable legal framework with regional, rather than centralised, rules that lead to
challenges. The increase in the size of cruise ships was also a “huge issue” for infrastructure on the continent, especially for ports, and tonnage had stopped calling in South America for this reason. But Mr Vago said some “brighter
signs” were being seen, such as Brazil hosting the next Olympics. “We are working together to see if we can bring growth back again in the area,” he added. Alaska was also singled out, as while an important market, it is within the North American Emission Control Area (ECA), which means that cruise operators will have to abide by 0.1 per cent sulphur rules. Holland America Line president and CEO Stein Kruse said that the operator had recently brought back capacity to Alaska. He said the line had been working
with the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to come up with measures to meet the ECA’s requirements and singled out technology as being a strong way to meet the regulation. Exemptions had been granted to some operators who had proposed using emerging technologies such as scrubbers, to deal with legislation. “The EPA is looking at that very positively,” he said. “If we continue to show technological solutions then the North American ECA can be navigated and avoid high potential damage [to business].” PST
Carnival Cruise Lines’ president and ceo Gerry Cahill said the Carnival Triumph fire review was number one priority
Passenger Ship Technology I 2nd Quarter 2013 I 67
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