Saga Cruises confirms newbuilding project plan

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Category: Top Headlines

Published on Tuesday, 26 June 2012 19:22

Written by Kari Reinikainen

Saga Cruises, the UK based niche cruise brand, is studying the viability of ordering a newbuilding, said James Duguid, Commercial Director of Saga Shipping, the company that owns Saga Cruises. Experience has shown that major refits can overshoot budget, he pointed out.

"We are looking at ordering a newbuilding,” Duguid told the European Cruise Council’s annual meeting in Brussels. The company's cruise business has grown at a rate of about 15% per year and Duguid said it is realistic to assume a similar growth rate in the future too.

A major upgrade of a second hand vessel will add perhaps 10 years to the economic life of the vessel, but a newbuilding would have a number of features that an existing vessel cannot offer, such as better fuel efficiency and higher grade safety through better redundancy etc, Duguid said.

He revealed that the company had spent £28 million last winter to refit the 37,301 gross ton Saga Sapphire that had been built as Europa in 1982, which was £4 million more than originally intended.

Similarly, a 2010 refit of current Quest for Adventure that had started life in 1981 as Astor of 18,835 gross tons , had cost the company £24 million, again £4 million more that had been planned.

“On Saga Ruby, we spent more on the refit than what we paid for the ship,” he said, referring to the 1973 built 24,294 gross ton ship that was built as Vistafjord.

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