104 Staying ship shape With cruise passenger numbers on the rise, cruise and ferry operators are focusing on improving the customer experience by investing in their fleets. Laura Hyde spotlights selected refurbishment projects completed over the past six months Cruise passenger numbers are increasing. An estimated 35 million people took a cruise in 2024, according to Cruise Lines International Association, which also predicted almost 40 million people will cruise annually by 2027 in its 2024 State of the Cruise Industry Report. In order to meet the needs of this growing number of guests, cruise lines must ensure their ships are modern, comfortable, safe and well-equipped with facilities to offer varied entertainment and activities for passengers. Regular maintenance will enable ships to stay seaworthy but more extensive refurbishments are often required to elevate the customer experience on older vessels to ensure they can compete with newbuilds. As such, repair and refurbishment shipyards around the globe carried out multiple projects on passenger ships in the latter half of 2024 and the first part of 2025. We highlight some of those refurbishment projects in the following pages. Hythe Shipyard, Southampton, UK The shipyard spent two months carrying out yearly maintenance work on two W-class ships belonging to ferry operator Wightlink. The project began with work on Wight Sky in September 2024 and also involved Wight Light, both ferries were withdrawn from service in turn for the refurbishment. Some of the works included painting the vehicle decks, pouring new resin flooring in passenger walkways and replacing the original mild steel/plastic control boxes with stainless steel. BLRT Repair Yards, Klaipeda, Lithuania The BLRT ship repair yard in Klaipeda has serviced two of TT-Line’s fleet of ferries: the 190-metre Akka and the 179-metre Nils Dacke. On Akka, the team serviced Azipods and replaced approximately 20 tons of steel across various decks, including for the stern ramps on decks three and five. On Nils Dacke the team painted XGIT-FUEL (from GIT Coating) onto the underwater hull and replaced and treated the steel on multiple decks. Antiskid layers were placed on ramps and scheduled maintenance was carried out on the ferry’s propulsion and propeller systems. The BLRT yard in Klaipeda is part of BLRT Grupp, which also owns and operates ship repair yards in Tallinn, Estonia, and Naantali, Finland. In February the team in Finland completed a maintenance project on Viking Line’s FEATURE TT-Line’s 179-metre ferry, Nils Dacke, underwent refurbishment at BLRT Repair Yards, Klaipeda, Lithuania
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