Cruise control is taken to new levels

WITH A magnificent fireworks display and the popping of hundreds of champagne corks, Freedom of the Seas, the world’s largest passenger ship, left Southampton on its inaugural cruise last week.

Its owners, Royal Caribbean, are not superstitious; in 1912, the Titanic began its maiden voyage at the same docks. Happily, on this occasion, no icebergs were encountered on the two-day celebratory trip to the Channel Islands. Everything, including the lavish on-board entertainment, went perfectly.

Freedom of the Seas is 339 metres long, the equivalent of 37 large buses placed end-to-end. It weighs 160,000 tonnes, compared to the Titanic’s 46,000. There are 3,500 kms of electric cable, 5,800 msq of window glass and 750,000 light bulbs. From the top deck, 14 stories up, the gannets flying off the bow seemed as small as pigeons. Visiting the bridge, I discovered that the ship has no wheel, just a little joystick no larger than those used for computer games. The navigational systems are incredibly sophisticated. According to Captain William Wright, the variation from its ideal position, as the great ship turned in Southampton Harbour, was never more than 60 centimetres. The liner can accommodate up to 4,375 passengers. The crew of 1,397 includes 64 nationalities. There are 140 cooks.

But what is the ecological footprint of such a vessel? Large ships are more fuel-efficient than smaller ones, when they travel at the same speed. Captain Wright regards the giant boat as an ecosystem; the water is extracted from organic waste and purified to drinking standard. The sewage sludge is burned on board and the heat used to generate electricity. No waste is discharged to the sea.

When I was young, people generally travelled ‘by boat’. Only the very well-off could afford to go ‘by air’. Then budget airlines came along and changed all that. Air travel is very hard on the environment; aircraft CO2 emissions are almost as bad as those from cars. Passenger ships, apart from the high-speed ones, are more eco-friendly but much too slow for today’s frenetic pace. Cruise ships, however, as their name implies, move in a leisurely fashion. Freedom of the Seas, last week, sauntered along at about 11 knots.

More people travel on cruise ships than go skiing and the numbers continue to grow. The problems facing cruise operators are similar to those encountered by the aviation and tourist industries; more and more people want access to finite resources. There are not enough runways for planes and not enough docks for ships. Demands for water, sanitation and waste disposal facilities exceed local resources at tourist sites world-wide. Dwindling — and increasingly insecure — oil supplies suggest an uncertain future and the greenhouse gas problem will have to be faced. If gas emissions are not controlled, the climate will change so drastically during the next few decades that there will be neither tourists nor habitable destinations for them to visit. So, how do we make better use of existing resources?

One approach to the problem is to build larger ships and aircraft. Using larger aircraft, for example, would postpone the need for a second runway at Dublin Airport. London’s Gatwick airport caters for more than twice as many passengers as Dublin on a single runway, because the aircraft using Gatwick are larger. Airbus have developed the world’s biggest passenger plane. Freedom of the Seas may be a leviathan but a much larger ship, tentatively named Genesis, will be launched in 2009. It will weigh 220,000 tonnes.

The cruise ship is essentially a tour bus with living accommodation on board but, as ships become bigger, getting the thousands of passengers on and off shore becomes a logistical nightmare. Royal Caribbean’s solution is to create attractions on board, so that passengers won’t want to go ashore. At the core of Freedom of the Seas is a street which runs almost the length of the ship. The street is lined with shops, cafes, a hair-dressing salon, casinos and pubs. In the ship as a whole, there are ten restaurants and 16 bars. An on-board company, with its own orchestra, performs in a state-of-the-art theatre which seats 1,350. (Dublin’s largest theatre, the Gaiety, can only manage 1,100). The ice-rink, in which a troupe of professional skaters performs, can accommodate an audience of 850. The huge gymnasium even has a boxing ring, while the top deck offers swimming pools, a basketball court, a jogging track and a surfing pool. A non-denominational chapel, above the highest deck, offers a serene contrast to the hedonism of the revellers below.

Are we seeing the creation of floating holiday resorts? As the beaches of the world become overloaded, are giant offshore resorts an alternative? It is difficult to measure the environmental impact of such developments, there are so many factors at play, but giant cruising resorts, where everything is recycled and where fuel demands are not excessive, seem less damaging than expanding the concrete jungles of the Costas.

The prospects are tantalising. Floating towns could migrate, like birds, to more hospitable climates. Mobile schools could provide the ultimate ‘educational tour’. To save fuel, why not use giant sails and follow the trade winds like the old sailing ships? Big vessels, dare I say it, are also ideal for nuclear power, but, then, Ozzy bin Laden would love that! Bon voyage!