Huge competitive pressures force major cruise lines, with fleets large and small, to refurbish their vessels continuously – almost yearly. But it’s also critical, in the name of nimble competition, for the managers overseeing the retrofits to keep the ships out of service for as short a period as possible.
Hence, the supervisors’ adoption of the customary two-week drydock, a 336-hour whirlwind of exacting and frenetic work, occasionally augmented by steps performed ‘alongside’ in a wetdock and even ‘on the run’ (while the ship is operational). Drydocks can be longer, of course: last year, according to Cyril Tatar, director of technical operations, Holland America Line (HAL), an extended drydock ran 34 days, the equivalent of more than one million man-hours, between the labour of the shipyard, contractors and crew. Costs are daunting as well: typical vessel refits run from about US$3 million to $50 million, with multi-year, fleet refurbishments, of course, going stratospheric at half a billion dollars.
However hellish, the drydocks are almost always successful, say Tatar, and and two other veteran refurbishment managers share this sentiment. That’s because of pre-planning of a year or more, along with the lines’ continuous audit of the skills, competence and trustworthiness of the various vendors with whom they must, of necessity, contract.
Quality vendors’ importance to successful refits can’t be overstated: only expert, qualified and trusted vendors can be relied upon to pull off exacting plans without a hitch. “Timing is the most challenging aspect of these projects,” says Tatar. “The main constraint is time, then cost.” That’s where great vendors come in. “With a multimillion-dollar refit project, we’re not just wanting good work but a quality of execution and a deportment that mitigates our huge risk after the refit.
“So, not surprisingly, in selecting a vendor, we’ll never rely on its fancy claims, but try to assess its technical teams fully and rapidly. And review all aspects of the company’s quality control and management. Again, not just because the contract may be worth millions, but because we face huge risks if the work is not performed properly, or is not faithfully warranted, or is simply not completed within our rigid timeframe.”
Naturally, adds Steve Storey, fleet project superintendent, Princess Cruises, vendors have something of an advantage in selection if they enjoy a standing relationship with a cruise line. But that is no guarantee of future work. Tatar concurs. HAL rarely gives a big project to a company it has not at one time engaged – the risk is too high. And any projects cited by would-be vendors need to have been successfully completed. “We can’t allow a vendor to leave us exposed on the business side,” says Tatar.
Both Tatar and Storey say that bringing in new vendors is usually progressive. They’re given small projects at the beginning and a relationship duly if slowly forms. Some are well-known contractors that have already participated in newbuildings. Some only have a refit background, but may also have excellent references on large, difficult, or more challenging projects.
The dynamics of vendor relationships, of course, vary among the cruise lines, especially with the size of one’s fleet. That’s clear to Steven Spendlove, director of technical operations at Crystal Cruises. Crystal currently fields only two smaller vessels, Symphony and Serenity, one of which goes into drydock every 18 months. Thus, Crystal’s two-week drydocks are an exacting ballet indeed.
Not to mention that, throughout it all, Crystal must uphold its sterling reputation for high-end luxury and fastidious service. The net result, says Spendlove, is drydocks that require somewhat more reliance on external vendors than at premium cruise lines with their larger fleets (like HAL and Princess).
“In the beginning, a drydock is intense; in the middle, it’s very intense; at the end, it’s extremely intense,” says Spendlove. Still, after three or four days, he finds, at least “everyone is in ‘go’ mode – logistics, installers, superintendents and designers, down to cooks – and, after seven days, really, you can see the finish line.”
The larger cruise lines, doing more drydocks and refits per year, says Spendlove, have in-house refit teams that move steadily from ship to ship. In Crystal’s case, during the drydock period, officers, crew and staff gather more often for onboard maintenance and to assure quality. A small refit team is tasked from operations, technical and hotel. But the bulk of the work goes to contractors. “Of course we often use our own people, such as our four French polishers (two on each ship), in drydock and refit situations,” says Spendlove. “But so often they have their own little projects to work on, things they can’t do during normal operation. So, during drydocks, we tend to rely on our external contractors – more so than at other, larger cruise lines.
“A bigger cruise line might have, say, a total of six French polishers, doing one ship at a time, moving from ship to ship. Whereas, for us it doesn’t make sense to blitz-polish in drydock; rather, the polishing is a continuous onboard process.
This approach doesn’t extend to areas of the refit that require manufacturing or extensive technical work, he says. “For those areas, we go ahead and select from an array of designers and contractors – sometimes for a discrete part of the refit, sometimes for turnkey service. Again, since we’re a smaller cruise line, we simply rely more on outside help.”
In general for refits, says Tatar, vendors are engaged on a more turnkey basis, compared to newbuilding. “We’re giving a bit more responsibility to the vendors, who use fewer subcontractors. We end up consolidating some of the work within an area – the HVAC, the A/C, the plumbing, the electrical – under one contractor serving multiple interior vendors, for example. That’s just to minimise the number of interfaces and streamline the coordination of work.”
Ultimately, according to Tatar, all parties to the process would be well advised to operate from a bias in favor of earlier performance than later. Certainly, says Storey, “there is just no such thing as starting too early in defining the concept of a refit. That’s because we’re never just working on one project. During most of last year, we were looking at four major conversions over, say, 18 months. So, before we get started, I like to have a minimum of 10-12 months’ planning on a project. That timing is somewhat changeable, but not for the drydocks themselves, whose dates are set years in advance.” He adds: “Knowing the drydocks are set in stone, our timing is rigid and it’s best to start planning early, because otherwise, inevitably some projects become overambitious in scale. We must uncover those early, in order to size them to fit within the related drydock.”
This is an abridged version of an article that appeared in the Spring/Summer 2013 edition of International Cruise & Ferry Review. To read the full article, you can subscribe to the magazine in printed or digital formats.