MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Prepare for Genesis cruise vessels with 5.400 pax

Project Genesis new generation vessels will be sailing by 2009

The cruise industry is booming and two huge new generation vessels with capacity for 5.400 passengers each are scheduled to be delivered in 2009 and 2010, ordered by Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd, RCCL, reports Finland's Aker Yards.

The Genesis project as the operation has been identified, involves the 220.000 GT "Project Genesis 1" and a similar "Project Genesis 2", which were ordered on February 6 last year and April 2 this year respectively with a contract price for each of them in the range of 900 million Euros which is approximately 1.26 billion US dollars. The 220.000 GRT vessel which is a prototype developed under Project Genesis, will be 360 meters long, 47 meters wide and 65 meters high above waterline. Aker Yards is one of the world's largest builders of cruise ships and has either built - or has in the order book - the 15 largest cruise ships in the world. Aker Yards is also one of Europe's top three ferry builders "Genesis is a big challenge for us, when it comes to size and complexity in the numerous technical innovations. But we are well prepared and enthusiastic when taking on this challenge", said Yrjö Julin, President of Aker Yards, Cruise & Ferries. "Breathtaking might be an understatement of this giant which will be 36 meters longer than the Eiffel tower and weighing 12 times more than the tower" he added pointing out to the fact that 38 years of excellent and dynamic cooperation between RCCL and Aker Yards has generated 24 innovative new vessels and there are a further four cruise vessels in the order book for 2007-2010 deliveries. One of them, "Liberty of the Seas" left the yard on 18 April 2007. It is the second in the series of the world's (for the time being) largest Freedom-class cruise vessels. "Genesis will be 43% larger, with a length of 360 meters and accommodating 8,400 passengers and crew" said Yrjö Julin, President of Aker. In 2006 Aker Yards acquired Chantiers de l'Atlantique one of the world's largest shipyards in Saint Nazaire, France, making the group the leading builder of cruise vessels. However Italy's Fincantieri also have contracts to build 15 cruise vessels with a GT of 1.6 million with an estimated value of 8 billion US dollars. German yards Meyer Werft have orders for eight cruise vessels. According to industry sources orders in the books for new cruise vessels total over 16 billion US dollars.