The Costa Smeralda has successfully passed her sea trials carried out with liquefied natural gas (LNG), according to a statement.
During the sea trials, which began on Nov. 16, the ship carried out a series of tests to verify the correct operation of systems, equipment and engines with LNG propulsion.
“The fueling of cruise ships with LNG is an innovation in which we were the first to believe five years ago, when we ordered the Costa Smeralda, setting an example for the sector which has since been followed by other companies. It is a safe and reliable technology, which is currently the most effective and feasible solution to ensure a significant reduction in the environmental impact of cruise ships in port and at sea,” said Neil Palomba, President of Costa Cruises.
Once the sea trials were finished, the ship returned to Meyer Turku for her final interior outfitting.
The first cruise will depart from Savona on Dec. 21. The itinerary, which will be repeated until May 16, 2020, will include Savona (Saturday), Marseilles (Sunday), Barcelona (Monday), Palma de Mallorca (Tuesday), Civitavecchia (Thursday) and La Spezia (Friday).
Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald, far right, was joined onstage during the CEO Conversation panel by John Chernesky-the-puppet of Princess Cruises. The session was moderated by editor in chief Arnie Weissmann, seated, left. Photo Credit: Jamie Biesiada
FORT LAUDERDALE — Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald told an audience at CruiseWorld that being the largest cruise company in the world comes with two key advantages — stability and innovation — that help Carnival’s brands deliver industry-leading results.
The company has more than 100 ships, and it operates in every segment and several global source markets. “One of every two people who cruise go with one of our nine brands,” Donald said, which include Princess Cruises, Holland America Line and Cunard Line, in addition to the namesake Carnival Cruise Line.
“Because we have such a large portfolio, it’s difficult for anyone thing happening somewhere in the world to take the company down,” Donald said.
Size matters in innovation too. “We have the scale and the capability to take on projects that others can’t,” he said.
A prime example of that is the costly OceanMedallion personalization technology that Carnival developed and rolled out initially on Princess Cruises.
“We invented it,” Donald said. “It’s not off-the-shelf apps.”
Donald ran down a list of developments at various Carnival brands, such as the roller coaster on next year’s Carnival Cruise Line newbuild, the Mardi Gras.
But when he forgot to mention Princess Cruises, a surprise guest made an appearance.
From behind the couch where Arnold was seated, up popped a Muppets-style character designed to look like Princess’ senior vice president of sales and trade marketing, John Chernesky. The puppet ribbed Donald and amused the crowd until the real John Chernesky bounded on stage to complain that the puppet has been impersonating him all over town.
The larger message to the puppet tomfoolery was to billboard the Jim Henson Creature Shop show, called “Inspired Silliness,” that will debut next month on the newest Princess ship, the Sky Princess.
When Donald finally regained the spotlight, he took some time to outline Carnival’s sustainability initiatives and defend the industry’s record.
He said that very little of the estimated 8 million tons of plastics in the ocean comes from ships, much less from cruise ships. “It comes from land; it comes through the rivers and gets into the ocean,” he said, adding, “Having said that, we don’t want anything going in the ocean. He said that Carnival has accelerated existing recycling efforts and processes to eliminate plastics from its waste stream.
Likewise, when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions, a Carnival brand was the first to use liquified natural gas (LNG) to provide power in port, and Carnival Corp. will be the first to bring an LNG-powered ship to North America, with the Mardi Gras.
“Ultimately we want to get to zero-emission,” Donald said. But he said cruise emissions are a tiny fraction of the global equation. “The reality is if the cruise industry didn’t exist, you wouldn’t be able to measure the difference in emissions,” he said.
Anticipating the first LNG-fueled cruise ship to sail out of a U.S. port, Carnival Cruise Line’s Mardi Gras, Tom Strang, senior vice president of maritime affairs for Carnival Corporation, told Cruise Industry News that the company has worked closely with Port Canaveral, the LNG supplier, the Coast Guard and other stakeholders, paving the way.
“There were little formal rules existing on ship-to-ship bunkering,” he explained, “so together with Shell and Port Canaveral, we have agreed to follow the standardized processes we developed for our bunkering operations in Europe, in Tenerife and Barcelona. Our LNG ships pretty much share the same technical platform enabling us to follow the same processes and procedures.”
Strang noted that crew and officers have been trained in the bunkering operation at CSMART where Carnival built a full-scale mock-up bunkering rig.
In addition, an engineering simulator was built for training purposes, and pilots also travelled to CSMART to learn how the ship will handle.
Explained Strang: “With LNG, the rate of loading of the engines is slightly slower with a gaseous fuel than with conventional fuel, but working with the engine manufacturer, the shipyard and Valmet’s automation engineers, we have been able to negate any major issues.
“Also, if there is an emergency and full power is needed immediately, the engines will switch over to diesel and you get an immediate response.”
In addition, some MGO has to be burnt routinely to keep it moving through the tanks, he added. It is also used as a pilot fuel for the LNG.
Bunkering by barge in Port Canaveral, the process for the Mardi Gras will take about six to eight hours, according to Strang. That is longer than conventional bunkering, and the goal is to find ways to speed up the process, while obviously maintaining safety, he noted.
LNG will take Carnival all the way to IMO’s 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target as far as the newbuilds are concerned. “We have 21 new ships on order,” Strang said, “and 10 of them are LNG, after the AIDAnova, which entered service late last year.
“The percentage of the fleet with LNG will be high. Later we will also see how we can continue to reduce our carbon emissions by potentially introducing biogas or synthetic gas into the supply chain.”
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