By
Donald Crighton |
When Barker spoke to ICFR, Canada had an 11% exchange rate advantage over the US dollar. “In recent years this advantage has averaged between 10% and 15%,” he says. “This has helped us attract vessels sailing up to Alaska – between April and October more than 35 cruise ships will pass by us on the Alaskan run.”
Cruise ships play a very important role in the business, says Barker. “We’re well known for cruise ship refits and currently work for Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Holland America Line and Seabourn as well as several others. Vessels on the Alaskan run can make use of the large Esquimalt drydock (1,300ft x 125ft with 30ft water at zero tide) owned by the Canadian Government.
“Grand Princess, which docked in December, was an interesting job with a high volume of repairs completed in only six days, which was very tight. We used 500 tradespeople, plus another 600 subcontractors. Grand Princess came to us from San Francisco, but other cruise ships have come from as far away as the Mexican Riviera.” Princess Cruises, Celebrity, Royal Caribbean International and others have already stemmed cruise ships from 2014 through until 2016.
There are crucial differences between refitting cruise ships and other types of vessels, explains Barker. “Cruise ship refits are ‘delivery by stop watch’. Timing is absolutely critical. It’s also very important to have a knowledgeable cruise ship workforce. We’ve built up all the necessary skills required over 50-plus years’ experience in repairing cruise ships. The first one we docked was the Queen Elizabeth 1 in 1942 and we’ve continued to drydock cruise ships since then. The new era of cruise ship dockings started in the seventies when we docked the Spirit of London, later to become Sun Princess, owned by P&O Cruises. We have a rich history in the cruise ship market.”
The average workforce employed on a cruise ship refurbishment varies considerably, he says. “Normally when we are carrying out other types of work, say for the Canadian Government, we have about 700 people in the yard, but when a cruise ship is in, our workforce increases to over 1,000. Our ability to find extra people is a big advantage as we can usually borrow from one of our other projects.
“The length of a refit varies enormously and can be anywhere from six days to two months. A standard refit takes around 9-10 days and costs about C$1 million a day, including subcontractors. Invoices can vary from as little as C$2 million, up to around C$20 million.”
Victoria Shipyards is currently planning a C$25million investment in new facilities. This will include a new machine shop with two 10-ton gantry cranes and a full outfit of new machines and vital equipment.
This article appeared in the Spring/Summer 2014 edition of International Cruise & Ferry Review. To read other articles, you can subscribe to the magazine in printed or digital formats.