It seems that the Royal Caribbean cruise line found one of their ships, the Enchantment Of The Seas, was a bit small. A replacement vessel would have cost a billion dollars and taken several years to build: so they decided to expand the old one.
By sawing it in half.
One instinctively does a double-take at the thought of cutting an ocean-going liner in half, but I guess it's a lot easier to do it that way. Still, if I ever sail aboard Enchantment Of The Seas, I'll be watching the midships welding seams carefully. If they look wet . . .
Peter
This is actually not an unusual method for making a vessel bigger, though maybe not quite on this scale. It generally also involves repowering (bigger power plant). The company I used to work for a number of years ago did this to a half dozen or so workboats. Keep in mind that the rest of the hull was also welded together.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Joe, it's reall not unusual.... although, if done wrong, it can be a problem. One of the THEORIES about the demise of Andrea Gail (perfect storm) has to do with the ship being lengthed, perheps improperly.... Most likely though, it wasn't a factor....
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