Chinese Taishan

Chinese Taishan

The ship as Costa Voyager

Ship data flag  Panama Liberia   other ship names Costa Voyager (2011–2014) Grand Voyager (2005–2011) Voyager (2004–2005) Olympia Voyager (2001–2004) Olympic Voyager (2000–2001) Ship type Cruise ship class Voyager- class Callsign D5MU2 home port Monrovia Owner Bohai Cruise Company, Yantai Shipping company Yantai Bohai Ferry International Ship Management Company, Yantai Shipyard Blohm + Voss , Hamburg Build number 961 building-costs approx. EUR 175 million Keel laying July 8, 1998 Launch July 14, 1999 Commissioning June 2000

Ship dimensions and crew length 180.45 m ( Lüa ) width 25.50 m Draft Max. 7.25 m measurement 24,430 GT / 10,083 NRZ   crew 353

Machine system machine diesel-mechanical 4 × diesel engines ( Wärtsilä 9L46C), each 9,450 kW Machine performance 37,800 kW (51,394 hp) Top speed 28 kn (52 km / h) propeller 2 × 4-blade controllable pitch propellers

Transport capacities Permitted number of passengers 927

Others Classifications Germanischer Lloyd (1998-2011) Registro Italiano Navale (2011–2014) China Classification Society (since 2014) Registration numbers IMO no. 9183506

The Chinese Taishan (Chinese: 中國 泰山 ; Zhōngguó tàishān ) is one of the fastest cruise ships in the world with a top speed of over 27 knots . It was commissioned as Olympic Voyager in June 2000 as the first new construction project of the Greek shipping company Royal Olympic Cruises . The ship has been operated by the Chinese shipping company Bohai Ferry since 2014 .

history

Construction and commissioning

The ship was laid down on July 8, 1998 at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg as hull number 961. For the shipyard, this project was the first new passenger ship to be built in 44 years. The shipyard had agreed an unusually high cruising speed with the client, the Greek shipping company Royal Olympic Cruises. The launch took place on July 14, 1999 and after completion of the work, the new building was handed over to the owner on June 15, 2000. On 22 June 2000 the ship in Athens became president Konstantinos Stephanopoulos in the name of Olympic Voyager baptized and placed into service under the Greek flag.

Sister ship is the Celestyal Odyssey from Celestyal Cruises .

commitment

As Grand Voyager from Ibero Cruceros off Bornholm

The ship has been used for cruises in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean since it was commissioned . In 2001 the ship was renamed Olympia Voyager . After the shipping company ran into economic difficulties, it was sold to Horizon Navigation ( Nassau , Bahamas ) in 2004 , where the ship was christened Voyager and chartered to the Spanish shipping company Iberojet. In 2005 the ownership of the ship went to Voyager Shipping and the ship's name was changed to Grand Voyager . The charter contract was extended, first with Iberojet, then with its successor, the joint venture Ibero Cruceros . After the cruise group Carnival Corporation & plc bought its partner out of the joint venture, it received ownership of the Grand Voyager in 2008 and transferred the ship to its European branch, the Italian shipping company Costa Crociere SpA

Costa Crociere kept the ship's name and the Spanish brand for another three years. From December 2011 to autumn 2013 she took over the ship under her main Italian brand and used her as Costa Voyager for cruises in the Red Sea . In the meantime, it had been renovated at the San Giorgio shipyard in Genoa for 2.5 million euros and, among other things, the chimney had been repainted in the colors of Costa cruises (blue “C” on a yellow background).

In November 2013 it was announced that the ship would be overhauled for several million euros in a Genoese shipyard. Shortly thereafter, however, it disappeared from the Costa website's ship list. In mid-February 2014, the Bohai Ferry Company from Yantai announced the purchase of Costa Voyager for $ 43.68 million. At the end of March 2014, Bohai Ferry bought the ship and transferred it to the People's Republic of China .

Incidents

On February 14, 2005, the ship with more than 700 passengers and crew was in distress between the Balearic Islands and Sardinia during a heavy storm with gale-force gusts. Before that, a wave had smashed the bridge's windows and paralyzed the on-board electronics. The machine system failed due to the resulting short circuit. Parts of the interior of the ship were devastated and twenty passengers were injured. After an emergency generator had partially restored the power supply, one of the four main engines could be started and the ship stabilized again. It reached the port of Cagliari in Sardinia on the morning of February 15, 2005 . The ship set out from Tunis on February 13 for a week-long Mediterranean cruise to Barcelona .

On February 7, 2012, a fire broke out in a cabin on deck 3 during a cruise in the Red Sea. An alarm announcement in Italian caused panic. Passengers stormed into the corridors with life jackets on, where they were calmed down by the crew and asked back to their cabins. As a result of the fire, water damage caused by the sprinkler system had also occurred in the affected cabin. According to the captain, the situation was always under control and the crew reacted immediately. The ship was able to continue its journey.

Ship technology

capacity

The ship can transport up to 927 passengers and together with crew and other personnel can transport a total of 1280 people.

hull

The construction of the hull is based on an underwater hull developed and patented by the shipyard, the so-called "Fast Monohull" (German: fast single hull ). Due to the particularly aerodynamic shape, the construction is characterized by high economic efficiency (the shipyard states a power saving of around 20%). With this hull shape, the underwater ship achieves flow values that are comparable to a submarine , and the capsizing stability corresponds to that of a conventional ship. The underside of the fuselage is hollowed out in the shape of a tunnel up to the stern, which optimizes the inflow and outflow of the closely spaced propellers .

Machine system and drive

In order to achieve the required high speeds, the ship was equipped with a particularly powerful main engine system. With a total output of 37,800 kW (51,394 PS), it more than triples the machine output of Germany ( Reederei Peter Deilmann ), which is comparable in size and measurement .

The system consists of four nine-cylinder four-stroke diesel engines of the Wärtsilä 46 type, each of which is housed in pairs in two machine rooms. The motors drive via reduction gear great 4-blade pitch propeller (manufacturer: KaMeWa) two with a diameter of 5.4 m, whose turning circles almost touching. The nominal speed of the propellers is 130 / min. Hydraulic clutches allow operation in any engine combination. This means that motors can be switched off for maintenance work even during operation. With only two engines running, the ship already reaches speeds of 22 knots . During test drives under full load, speeds of over 30 knots (approx. 55.6 km / h) were achieved.

In addition to the main engines, four additional auxiliary engines of the Wärtsilä 26 type are installed. Each of the eight-cylinder in-line engines has an output of 2,000 kW (approx. 2,720 hp ).

See also

• List of cruise lines

literature

• Douglas Ward: Complete Guide to Cruising & Cruise Ships 2009 . Berlitz Publishing, 2009, ISBN 978-3-493-60255-5 .
• Yearbook of the Shipbuilding Society 2001. Springer Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-540-40361-2 .

Web links

Commons : IMO 9183506  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

• Video recording of the ship in distress 2005

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} ship data at equasis.org. Accessed April 3, 2014 (registration required). 
2. ↑ ^{a b} entry at leonardoinfo (English)
3. ↑ Royal Olympic Cruises' Olympic Voyager to be Christened by President of Greece , accessed February 8, 2011.
4. ↑ M / S Olympic Voyager & M / S Olympic Explorer at Knud E. Hansen  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)  
5. ↑ Historical and technical data of the ship , accessed on February 9, 2011.
6. ↑ Costa borrows the Grand Voyager from Ibero Cruceros | CruiseTricks , accessed February 18, 2011.
7. ↑ Costa fleet is growing: Costa Voyager | CruiseTricks , accessed November 9, 2011.
8. ↑ Costa Cruises: Press Releases September - December 2013 ( Memento of the original from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Bohai Ferry to buy Costa Voyager. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 22, 2014 ; accessed on February 11, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
10. ↑ COSTA VOYAGER Sold To Bohai. Retrieved February 19, 2014 . 
11. ^ Emergencies at sea February 2005 , accessed on February 9, 2011.
12. ↑ Current distress cases from the ticker area (March 1, 2012 Costa III))
13. ↑ Blohm + Voss - A Historical Review , accessed on February 9, 2011.
14. ↑ TECHNOLOGY: Filing from mast to keel , accessed on February 9, 2011.
15. ↑ Olympic Voyager Cruise Ship - Ship Technology , accessed February 9, 2011.