Just how long do these cruise ships last?

[Kelv_2013]

Oceanic was the same way, some cabins like closets, some like mini suites. And with divided bathrooms like Disney has.

 

We signed up for the Oceanic mini cruise just the day before we sailed. We found a paper advertising it in our hotel room and having never cruised before thought it would be fun. We did enjoy it but I remember our cabin being down by the engine room. It was very small and very warm in there. We wouldn't have chosen that one but it was fine for our first ever cruise.

[chengkp75]

Actually both is true, though the asbestos Problem was the bigger one. When the Boiler exploded huge amounts of asbestos where blown through the ship. The Boiler while still expensive could have been replaced, but the asbestos Problem was what broke the ships neck. NCL then lied about the Destination when tugging the Norway out of Bremerhaven, as they weren´t allowed to take her out for scrapping without having the asbestos removed. Final outcome was she was scrapped in Alang from poor workers without any protection against asbestos.:(

 

Absolutely. Fortunately, there are very few of the old steamships around, as all of them are asbestos nightmares (I know, I sailed on a lot of them). Just as the SS United States was taken to Turkey for asbestos removal, there will always be problems with ship scrapping. There is little intrinsic value to the ship, so it will go to the place where labor is the cheapest, and environmental laws are non-existent. Which is why the scrapping operation of the Costa Concordia, scheduled to take place in Piombino, Italy, will take so long and cost so much money. There are international constraints on ship scrapping now, but unfortunately, third-world countries will still falsify documents in order to make a buck.

[PattyG12]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/cruiselog/2013/08/08/love-boat-cruise-ship/2630821/

 

The love boat being scrapped right now ... 42 years

[Max Density]

Actually, I don't think there are any WWII ships left in the NDRF anchorages (James River, Beaumont, and Benicia) anymore. Most of the WWII era ships were called out for Vietnam, and scrapped afterwards. The current ships are from the 50's to the 70's, and very likely will never move again. Some of the 70's era ships were called out for the Persian Gulf war, with disastrous results, as the machinery failed constantly, and replacement parts were hard to find. The current Ready Reserve Fleet, less mothballed than the NDRF, is mainly 70's to 80's era ships with diesel engines and lots more containerized or RO/RO capability than the older ships.

 

I would be surprised if any ships from the 70's are still mothballed, especially diesel ships. My first ship, a Spruance-class destroyer built in the mid-70's, is sitting on the bottom of the Pacific right now after being used as target practice when she was decommissioned. She had a gas turbine power plant.

[chengkp75]

I would be surprised if any ships from the 70's are still mothballed, especially diesel ships. My first ship, a Spruance-class destroyer built in the mid-70's, is sitting on the bottom of the Pacific right now after being used as target practice when she was decommissioned. She had a gas turbine power plant.

 

Actually, diesel ships lay up much better than steamships. If you go to the link below, you can search the 3 mothball fleet locations, or the inventory, and it shows all the construction dates. Some 50's, mostly 60's and 70's. You've got to remember, this isn't the "gray funnel line", this is the Maritime Administration, and they are required to have so many ships in "reserve", and since Marad doesn't own any ships, they can only get ones that the commercial companies are willing to give away. And I did say that I don't believe any of them will ever move again, except to be "recycled" as Marad calls it.

 

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=ndrf&source=web&cd=7&cad=rja&sqi=2&ved=0CFEQFjAG&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.marad.dot.gov%2Fships_shipping_landing_page%2Fnational_security%2Fship_operations%2Fnational_defense_reserve_fleet%2Fnational_defense_reserve_fleet.htm&ei=UucDUrPAMdL94AOm0IC4CA&usg=AFQjCNH17Ted9iFWHvD6fTZhGuwRMON4nw

[Iluvcruising2]

I googled "oldest cruise ships that still sail" and came across this page.

 

http://crew-center.com/oldest-cruise-ships-still-sail

 

It does sound like the Athena (now called Azores) is still sailing.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Athena

 

"Early 2013, Athena was bought by the recent created Portuguese cruise company Portuscale Cruises and renamed Azores."

[ehfl]

Yes, the boiler exploded which took it out of commission, but would not have lasted much longer anyway.

 

Modern steel is much stronger, and steel structures can last a century or more ( see Eiffel Tower). Salt complicates things, but a well maintained ship should not have too much of a problem. My experience has been that I see crew constantly checking for exposed steel daily and cleaning and painting any spots that need it.

 

Eventually it does become cheaper to build a new one, however the lifespan of modern ships should be longer than older ships that used inefficient power sources, and inferior steel.

 

Actually, the Norway had a boiler problem, a BIG boiler problem.

 

 

As I've said, the main concern is not propulsion technology, but steel. When you get over 15 years old, and have to start renewing framework and plating in ballast, fuel, and fresh water tanks, you start to have longer drydocks which means longer times out of service, less cruises in a year, and so on in a spiral until it is cheaper to build new than repair old.

[maureencruiser]

How long do cruise ships last? Here is the Titanic on the ocean floor, 101 years after she sank!

[chengkp75]

Yes, the boiler exploded which took it out of commission, but would not have lasted much longer anyway.

 

Modern steel is much stronger, and steel structures can last a century or more ( see Eiffel Tower). Salt complicates things, but a well maintained ship should not have too much of a problem. My experience has been that I see crew constantly checking for exposed steel daily and cleaning and painting any spots that need it.

 

Eventually it does become cheaper to build a new one, however the lifespan of modern ships should be longer than older ships that used inefficient power sources, and inferior steel.

 

Yes, the visible areas are treated constantly, but in fact this is pretty much cosmetic, as the conditions for proper coating adhesion are rarely met with crew painting, and it is just to keep from seeing rust until the next shipyard period. The problem is that with "improved" or "high tensile" steels, steel thicknesses have decreased dramatically from the old days, to the point where 19mm hull plating is thick, and used at the high stress areas. Along with the decreased steel thicknesses, comes the increased load on the steel (bending stress) caused by bigger, longer, heavier ships. As anyone familiar with a beer can's pop-top, repeated bending of metal leads to fatigue and breakage, and this is also considered when determining the required thickness of steel (can it last through the expected bending cycles for 30 years). Also, inside the double bottom tanks the web frames can waste away even with a visibly good coating. A lot of the cost for older ships is the requirement to do ultrasonic thickness measurements over vast areas of hull plating and frames in order to determine that the steel is still acceptably thick.

 

The SS United States is 60 years old, yet she still has about 90+% of her hull plating thickness left, something you don't see with newer steels.

 

One reason that the US merchant marine stayed with the steam turbine propulsion exclusively after WWII, was the fact that maintenance on a steam plant is minimum compared to the diesel engines that Europe used for their ships after the war. Labor cost in Europe was very low compared to the US, so the European shipowners did not mind the maintenance costs. However, fuel was far more expensive in Europe, so US shipowners did not mind the inefficient steam plant, while Europeans needed to save fuel to be competetive. It was only after the oil embargo of the 70's that the US started to build diesel powered ships.

 

As I've said, ships are designed for 30 year lifespan, with good maintenance. Many will last this long, some won't, and some will be squeeked out to 40+. It is all a question of cost, as whether the additional cost to maintain/repair the older ship can still bring a return on investment.

[Esilef]

Once the ships get older than 10 years old. They seem to be shipped to Australia & rebadged p&o.:p

 

Finally the cruise industry has woken up & started to really see Australia & it's neighbours as a great place to cruise.

 

Which may explain why we are the second largest growth market behind the us.

 

Send more old cruise ships please!!!

 

BTW I would like the Oasis to come & stay a while in Australia.:cool:

[Esilef]

And thank you for letting us borrow the voyager of the seas for a while!!!

[PLEIKU68]

Last week we were on the Liberty of the Seas in the Western Med and alongside us at Naples was a ship called the MSC Melody. I got chatting to an American guest on board who was a Tour Operator and had travelled extensively over the years, so he knew a lot about cruise ships. I can't recall how we got on to the subject, but we soon established that the Melody was run years back by Premier Cruise Lines in partnership with Disney as one of their "Big Red Boats". He said it was called the Starship Oceanic, although I since believe from Googling away back home that it was its sister ship, the Starship Atlantic. I believe the Oceanic may have been scrapped in 2012.

 

Anyway, this cruise aboard the Liberty was only our third ever and our first in 1992 was a mini-cruise, aboard the Starship Oceanic from Port Canaveral to the Bahamas. As we looked down on the Melody from our balcony up high, the children remarked on just how small it was (35,000 tonnes or so I believe) compared to the Liberty. Of course, we didn't know any better back then, we had only ever been on 6,000 tonne ferries, so it looked large in to us back then.

 

It has got me thinking, just how long can these ships stay in service before being deemed un-seaworthy or failing in meeting today's regulations etc?

 

 

As long as you change the oil and check the tires I think they will last a good long time. Look at the Sun Viking and Nordic Prince, I was on these in the early 70's and they are still on the right side of the water. :):)

[PattyG12]

Once the ships get older than 10 years old. They seem to be shipped to Australia & rebadged p&o.:p

 

Finally the cruise industry has woken up & started to really see Australia & it's neighbours as a great place to cruise.

 

Which may explain why we are the second largest growth market behind the us.

 

Send more old cruise ships please!!!

 

BTW I would like the Oasis to come & stay a while in Australia.:cool:

 

Australia is on my bucket list ... maybe I'll come sail on the Oasis when she comes there ;)

[Tagsalong]

For what it's worth, Song of Norway is supposed to be being converted to a casino ship in (I think) Guangzhou, Sun Viking is cruising as Oriental Dragon (and just left Hong Kong about three hours ago), and Nordic Prince is laid up someplace. So at least one of the three original RC ships is still doing what she's been doing for 40 years.

 

Check out this web site. There is a ship for sale that looks like one of the original RCCL ships - note the Viking Crown Lounge.

 

http://www.marine-consultant.com/p508.htm

 

As anyone can see, if you want to keep one of these 30 to 40 year old cruise ships afloat, just fork over 50 million Euros, or so.

[The Big Booper]

I think we saw this ship in Madeira on a transatlantic cruise in 2008.

Unfortunately Webshots is gone and I haven't re posted our pics to a new website yet. Is it the Song of America?

 

It was named the Thomson Destiny and we were told that the VC lounge could not be removed because it would impact the structural rigidity of the ship.

[oneputt18]

Just Google Thomson Destiny and it is the Song of America.

 

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Forums mobile app

[Extra Kim]

 

 

It´s the same ship.