When you moderate a panel discussion of four or five professionals with vast industry knowledge at a Seatrade conference, you never quite know what will come up. At Tuesday's Seatrade Cruise Virtual's Expedition Cruising session on 'Innovation in Expedition Ship Design, our panelists were Per Eriksson, Tillberg Design, Loris Di Giorgio, SVP sales for the Merchant Ships Division at Fincantieri, Patrick Janssens, CEO of Shipyard De Hoop, and Josh Leibowitz, president of Seabourn Cruise Line. The session was sponsored by Bureau Veritas.
And yes, there was a surprise.
For the expedition niche, sustainability, safety and wellness is a particularly special challenge, given that these ships travel in the world's most out-of-the-way places, without the support of close-by ports with full infrastructure. Self-reliance, which starts with the design process, continues on with sourcing products, and eventually is reliant on construction, is critical. And at the same time, cruise lines and ship designers are all competing for the next wow effect to attract new-to-expedition travelers to the niche.
Seabourn's Leibowitz offered a special example of having all of that come together – when it developed its "wow factor" twin submarines, it had to go with lithium battery technology to power them over more traditional technology – because of the remoteness of the locale.
Ultimately, Tillberg's Per Eriksson commented that the expedition niche "is the Tesla of the cruise industry." Truly, it was that kind of lightbulb moment that you can't predict -- and it perfectly captured an insight.
Other highlights?
– DeHoop's Janssen told a terrific story about how his yard, building Silversea Cruises' Silver Origin in the beginning of the pandemic, managed to use a military approach to staffing when all around Covid-19 was ravaging and the Netherlands was on lockdown. Sea Trials produced another conundrum when the ship was forced to undergo fine tuning remotely -- via a team in Russia's St. Petersburg. LINK to story: https://discover.silversea.com/on-board/building-silver-origin/ "It was a combination of creative thinking and strict regimes," he tells us, that allowed the yard to complete the newbuild just two weeks late.
– All agreed that enhanced camera technology, combined with drones, is a crucial new development in expedition niche as it allows travelers to be " David Attenborough or Jacques Cousteau for a few minutes," says Eriksson. "You can remain at an even safer distance because the zoom capacity of cameras is incredible," says Seabourn's Leibowitz, "and you are able to get closer visually to the optics even if you're not able to get so close to risking disrupting the nature."
– With one of cruise's youngest fleets, the expedition industry, partly due to IMO regulations on banning the use of heavy fuel oil and the impact of the great recession of 2008 has meant that cruise lines are on a rapid expansion tear and delivering newbuilds that are tons ahead of the old expedition ships. This has resulted in the development of a number of new technologies, such as the first dual LNG Hybrid battery powered vessel.
Ultimately, what's exciting today is the new innovations. "Ships are now often designed to stay in one area," says DeHoop's Janssen, speaking specifically about the Galapagos, which is a yearlong destination for expedition cruise. "That is quite a brave move." From a sheer design perspective, DeHoop is testing "a water vehicle attached with an umbilical so passengers can dine under the ice." And new trends in design of onboard Zodiac landing platforms onboard mean that, on newbuilds, travelers may no longer have to jump onto the soft ribs. Instead, there are risible platforms that literally bring the Zodiacs into the ship's garage.
"I see lots of great opportunities in the future for shipyards and cruise lines to work together," Janssen says.
Article was written by Carolyn Spencer Brown, moderator of this panel and Chief Content Officer of Cruise Media LLC
