China’s Second Homegrown Large Cruise Ship Lays down

He Baoxin, Lu Xiaoqing

China's second domestically made cruise ship construction officially started at Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding（SWS） C o., a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), on August 8. This shows that China's shipbuilding industry has initially mastered core technologies of the design and construction of large cruise ships. While opening a new era of “double cruises”, it has taken a milestone step towards the mass and serialized construction of large cruise ships.

Large cruise ships, aircraft carriers and large LNG carriers are known as the “Pearls on the Crown” in the shipbuilding domain, and large cruise ships are also the last “Pearl” that China's shipbuilding industry has not yet to harvest. Large cruise ships represent a country's equipment manufacturing capacity and comprehensive scientific and technological level. To fully promote the design and construction of large cruise ships is a landmark project for the transition and upgrading of China's shipbuilding industry and to enhance the global influence of Chinese manufacturing.

Larger, greener

The second large homegrown cruise ship, which started construction today, has undergone a series of optimizations based on the same type of first ship. The ship has a gross tonnage of about 142,000 tons, an overall length of 341 m, a molded breadth of 37.2 m, a design draft of 8.17 m, a maximum draft of 8.4 m, a maximum speed of 22.7 knots, and 2,144 passenger cabins. Compared with the first ship, the second large cruise ship increased by 6,700 gross tons, the overall length increased by 14.4 m, and the number of passenger cabins increased by 19.

At the same time, according to the International Convention on the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) 2020 damaged stability requirements and the IMO Tier III standard & EEDI second phase requirements, the ship added two sets of desulfurization towers and selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems, thus making the second homemade large cruise ship become a more environment-friendly floating city in the future.

It is worth mentioning that, compared with the first ship, the second domestically made large cruise ship has also made some modifications in the appearance, altering its top chimney shape from “ball head” to “slicked back head”. Furthermore, the second large cruise ship is provided with 16-story huge superstructure living and entertainment area, with large performing arts center, large restaurants, characteristic restaurants, bars, cafes, shopping plaza, art corridor, children's center, SPA, water park and other ample entertainment facilities, able to meet passengers’ more abundant life and entertainment requirements.

We learn that China's first domestic large cruise ship construction contract was sealed in November 2018. At present, the first ship is in the second half of its interior finishing and system completion debugging and the project is progressing in an orderly and controllable fashion.

Under the unified command of CSSC and substantial support of project partners Carnival Corp and Fincantieri S.P.A., Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding conducted cruise design, construction, project management and other special researches through introduction, digestion and independent innovation, formed a series of scientific and technological innovation products, blazed a trail for Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding continuing to adhere to open cooperation and achieve winwin development, and paved the way for the second domestic large cruise construction.

Experienced, more confident

In order to implement and promote the domestic large-scale cruise project, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding, under the leadership of CSSC, has pooled resources and strengths to complete a number of adaptability improvement projects of large cruise shipyards. In particular, they built the intelligent thin sheet production workshop, and with MES system as the core, matched with industrial Internet technology, they realized the intelligent control of the production line, which not only improves the efficiency and precision management level of segmented construction, but also builds the serial construction capacity of cruise products.

In the meantime, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding developed and applied the new-generation shipbuilding management platform SWS TIME to realize the whole-process information collaborative control of design, procurement and field management; through the R&D integrated mobile application platform, they accelerated the collaborative efficiency and realized the mode change of “people find data to data find people”.

On this basis, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding organized advantageous units in the industry to carry out technical brainstorming, and conquered key design technologies including cruise weight control, safe return to port, power system, integrated power grid, cabin environment, and vibration noise.

Moreover, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding has attracted more than 500 global suppliers via crossindustry and cross-region sourcing to promote cruise ship design and construction tasks, not least in the cruise in-built sector, and has established partnership with 54 service providers from the United States and Italy.

What counts is that Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding innovatively introduced the technology, construction and management capabilities long term accumulated in the onshore hotel into the cruise ship in-built engineering realm, deeply carried out the secondary development of 3D design software, and realized the deep integration and application of 3D software in the shipbuilding industry and BIM technology in the building industry.

The design and construction period of the large cruise ship of the second domestic large cruise ship decreased by 6 months compared with the first ship, and the new changes of the ship type and configuration require Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding to redevelop and demonstrate for the safe return design, weight control and fire prevention design.

Thanks to the experience accumulated in cooperation with overseas partners and independent innovation in the construction of the first ship, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding will continue to ramp up investment in scientific and technological innovation, deeply empower cruise projects, further improve project management, and fully promote the construction of the second domestic large cruise ship through risk control over quality, safety, cost and cycle.

We learn that about 40% of the detailed design of the second domestic large cruise ship has been completed so far, and the production design model balance and structure production design drawing work has been fully started. In terms of construction, Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding is constantly strengthening its production preparation in terms of process innovation, equipment debugging and talent team construction.