Eekaksi7

The bow and other parts today

Yeah I would consider doing that if they paid me $90.

https://www.instagram.com/pdeboer_photos

Icon and Mariner alongside

From instagram:

The weather cleared up just in time! Beautiful shots.

Icon is currently scheduled to depart for its second sea trials tomorrow night 8PM local time

A little late but here it is. I ran it through Google Translate and fixed some errors manually, it's a little janky read but should be understandable. 😄 Meyer's Turku shipyard performs almost miracles - These solutions distinguish the world's largest cruise ship from its competitors Biggest that, longest that. Almost three Giza pyramids stacked on top of each other, meters more than the Eiffel Tower in Paris and only a few meters less than the Empire State Building in New York. The sight is shocking. In front is the 365 meter long and 70 meter high floating hotel and water park, Icon of the Seas. Impressive. One of the talking points of Icon of the Seas is the glass dome on the bow deck, which is 55 meters in diameter. It is bigger than St. Peter's Church. PHOTO: DIRK SCHWARZ / ROYAL CARIBBEAN In the middle of August, the first test runs are successfully over and they will be followed by a tight finishing phase of a couple of months at Meyer's Turku shipyard. There is little time and a lot to do, but so are the makers, several thousand. The guide is not there for nothing. The crowd flows back and forth between the twenty floors, and in the background there is a jumble of languages. The whirring and banging is accompanied by easy-going reggae as if to remind you where the compass is about to point: to the Caribbean, of course. At the Turku shipyard, Icon of the Seas has changed things in many ways. Radical cruise ships flash in the speeches - and for good reason. "Even if the customer asks for almost anything, we can do it. It's pretty amazing," admits sales and design director Marjo Keiramo herself. And so that the skills are passed on to future creators, he also teaches the radical creativity of ship design at Aalto University. There is a shortage of skilled workers. In the next few years, hundreds of new workers will be needed for planning alone. Giant. Icon of the Seas is the world's largest cruise ship. PHOTO: JOEL MAISALMI Keiramo sells the field with many advantages: "There is hardly any day like the other, and you can certainly fulfill yourself. There are jobs at the shipyard, the shipping company, the classification society, subcontractors and other partners." A relationship of more than 50 years The partnership with Royal Caribbean has been built over 53 years. Advantage. Thanks to the new high-strength steel, the suites have spectacular windows. PHOTO: JOEL MAISALMI When the Song of Norway was completed in Helsinki in 1970, there were about a thousand passengers and, in addition to the cabins, a few passenger quarters and three restaurants. When Icon of the Seas departs from the Miami pier next January, it will carry more than 7,600 passengers and 2,350 employees. Also on board are Royal Caribbean's largest ice arena, a shape-shifting waterfall, the largest water park in the oceans, seven swimming pools, the longest water slide in the oceans, the cruise world's first open free fall water slide, a surfing simulator, a mini golf course and 49 restaurants and bars. The shipyard has contracts for Icon class ships until the end of 2026. By then, the Icon of the Seas' two sister ships will also be completed. The price has also increased: while the Song of Norway cost about 13.5 million dollars, according to online information, the price tag of the Icon of the Seas ship is already 1.43 billion dollars. At the center of everything is free hands to implement ideas. Ideas, on the other hand, can come in the form of conversations or the customer can draw one on a napkin. This is how the idea of a glass dome was born, and the Aqua Dome will be the hallmark of Icon ships in the future. The first of them has a diameter of 55 meters and is larger than the dome of St. Peter's Church in the Vatican. The Dome, which weighs more than 500 tons, was built on the ground and lifted into place. Size. The ship's water park is the largest in the seas. PHOTO: JOEL MAISALMI The wishes also included "some ball". The Pearl staircase was born from that, which welcomes visitors with a wow effect immediately upon boarding and at the same time serves as the ship's load-bearing frame structure. Own steel The central radical solution is also high-strength steel, which the shipyard developed together with SSAB. Its merits include, among other things, new cabin solutions, and therefore Icon of the Seas is also significantly lighter, which saves fuel. The steel also takes on storms: in the worst weather, the hull can bend up to a meter between bow and stern. Icon of the Seas What: The world's largest cruise ship ordered by Royal Caribbean Cruises and built by Meyer Turku, scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2023 Dimensions: Length 365 m, width 48.5 m, height 70 m. Depth about 10 m. The ship has 20 decks. There are 2,805 cabins and 155,000 m2 of passenger space. Fuel: Lng gas, fuel cells Engine power: 90 MW Number of people: A total of 9,950 passengers and crew members Special features: 55 meter diameter roof dome, 17 meter high waterfall, bottom of the water pool consisting of several moving levels. Bottom of the Aqua Dome pool Price: About $1.43 billion "The frame is like a Christmas tree, which has to withstand all the decorations," describes Ari Niemelä, head of Meyer's structural design department. The sizes of cruisers have grown by leaps and bounds every ten years or so. According to Niemelä, Icon of the Seas is starting to hit the upper limit. "The length of the piers, the draft and the size of the harbor basin come into play, because the ship must also be able to turn." On the Miami route, in addition to standard ports, Royal has its own islands, such as Coco Cay in the Bahamas and Labadee in Haiti. Important destinations in Europe include Barcelona, Civitavecchia, Malta, Marseille and Naples. There are also so many passengers that it limits destinations. Around 6,000 passengers fill the city's terminal and attractions at any one time. Not everyone even gets off the ship, and they don't have to. There is so much to see and do that you won't have time to experience everything during a week's trip. Niemelä guesses so. The sizes also require new solutions for emissions. Icon of the Seas is Royal Caribbean's first LNG-powered ship, and in addition to gas, the energy source is hydrogen. In the future, even small nuclear power plants may loom after 2050. Some of the icebreakers are already powered by nuclear power. Showy. The bow glass dome was lifted into place already assembled. PHOTO: JOEL MAISALMI Emissions out Last December, Royal Caribbean, the Finnish government and Meyer's shipyard agreed that from 2035 all ships designed and manufactured in Turku will be emission-free. That's why Net Zero ships are lurking in the binoculars. "Climate-neutral ships are a tough goal," admits Keiramo, who is also responsible for the green transition. Entertainment. There is also a large theater under the bow glass dome. PHOTO: JOEL MAISALMI Net Zero means that there are no emissions either from the shipyard, construction, technologies, products or even from the makers. There are other good things that can be done: while moving, the ships could clean sea water and, if necessary, deliver aid to crisis areas. In the Caribbean, for example, cruise ships have already transported residents to safety from hurricanes and delivered aid, food, medicine and other supplies to the devastated areas. In Turku, the shipyard's own energy already comes from renewable sources, and in the Icon class ships, for example, the treatment of waste with microwave pyrolysis helps the goal. At the same time, it produces eight percent of the energy needed by the ship. "No untreated waste water ends up in the sea, and 90 percent of fresh water is produced by reverse osmosis from seawater," says Keiramo Artificial intelligence has also been harnessed in the design, with the help of which, for example, the movement of passengers has been studied. The goal is that cruise ships of the future could have half as many elevators as now. Business is booming During the corona years, the cruise business hit a wall and the shipping companies got heavily in debt when they had to keep the ships running and manned. Now the pressure is released and, in addition to Royal Caribbean, Carnival, MSC, Norwegian Cruise Line and Costa Cruises are competing for the turning market. There are an estimated 31.5 million cruise passengers worldwide this year and 39.5 million by 2027. Customers are mainly families, and more and more often grandparents also travel with them. Entertainment and facilities on cruise ships are designed accordingly, which is also reflected in the solutions of the Icon of the Seas ship. Makers. Ari Niemelä (left), Katja Lankinen (behind), Marjo Keiramo and Mikko Ilus and their teams fulfill the customers' wishes. PHOTO: JOEL MAISALMI "Millennials are a large group, but there are also singles and couples. And there must be something for everyone. Chilling, pools, the world of spas and fitness are emphasized," says Keiramo. In the initial phase, Icon of the Seas will cruise in the Western and Eastern Caribbean, and according to the shipping company, the demand for tickets has broken all previous records. The prices are also in a class of their own. Based on an online comparison, the cheapest week-long cruises cost well over a thousand dollars in an inside cabin. In March, for example, you can get a cabin with a balcony for a good $5,000, a Sunset suite for $10,000, and a three-story super suite for $75,000. At the same time, Caribbean cruises on other ships of the shipping company cost less than a thousand dollars. Recently, Royal Caribbean Group warned that its results will improve more than expected. According to Factset, the group recorded a turnover of 5.8 billion euros and an operating profit of 954 million euros from January to June, while the operating loss for the whole of last year was 714 million euros. The company's net debt of around 20 billion euros is slowly decreasing, by one billion a year. Corona debt is and will remain on the balance sheet for a long time to come. According to the forecasts, this year's operating result will already exceed the equivalent of 2019, but the interest expense of 1.2 billion euros will weigh down the last line's result compared to 2019. According to forecasts, interest expenses will remain at the level of one billion for the next few years as well. According to Keiramo, what is decisive is what the market will be like for the next ten years.

National Geographic will air an episode about the constuction of the Icon of the Seas on Monday. They had a crew filming when they lifted and fitted the AquaDome onto the Icon earlier this year. The episode is scheduled to air in Europe on 4th of September, I am not sure if it will be broadcast in North America.

Thank you! Been following this thread for a while, happy to contribute! Here's some more close angle and close-up photos. And I have to say, even though controversial but the ship really does look beautiful from a low frontal angle. (maybe it just hides the big forehead 😄)

Went to see the Icon for myself last Saturday 22nd, some pics: