The majority of cruise ships that were in the South Atlantic or South Pacific are nearing the end of their journeys back to European or American waters north of the equator. In a week or so they will all be back, and apart from a few still moving from berth to anchorage, the unique situation will be that all the world’s cruise ships will be laid-up due to the effects of coronavirus.
A new lay-up area that has come into use in the last few days is Manila Bay, where Pacific Explorer, Queen Elizabeth, Sea Princess, Sun Princess are anchored, and where Majestic Princess, Sapphire Princess, Spectrum of the Seas and Voyager of the Seas are also heading.
The largest concentration of cruise ships is in the Miami area. The Great Bahamas Bank occupies the area between Cuba, Miami, Port Everglades, Freeport and the Bahamas and provides numerous suitable areas for anchoring. Cruise ships are frequently moving from an anchorage into a nearby port to spend perhaps a day alongside for bunkers, water, stores and crew changes, before returning out to an anchorage. The cruise ship managers ashore will have been kept very busy organising these movements with port authorities. Minimal sea crew are on board at this time, all (most) hospitality crew have been paid-off.
If a cruise-ship spends a lengthy period of time lying at anchor/berthed in shallow and tropical waters, there is a good chance that the ship may experience hull biofouling and need in-water cleaning before resuming commercial service.
(Thanks to Mike Pryce for this.)
1 comment:
Interesting item ,thanks to Mike for the info. A skeleton crew on these cruise ships for maintenance is all that is required if the anchorage is safe given what weather conditions can strike the places mentioned ,but if and when they re-enter service I doubt getting trained staff back will happen quickly ,though Manila certainly will attract many Phillipino's as has seemingly happened in recent years .
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