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| HOLLAND AMERICA LINE |
| NOORDAM |
| NOORDAM |
Captain John Scott’s substantial experience at sea has included everything
from working on banana boats and sheep carriers to commanding some of
the most luxurious passenger ships afloat. He is presently captain and
master of Holland America Line’s NOORDAM, that company’s latest
cruise ship. Before coming to Holland America in 1995, he was Chief
Officer on the legendary QUEEN ELIZABETH 2. As a result, he is
uniquely situated to discuss some of the similarities and differences between
a modern cruise ship such as NOORDAM and the venerable ocean liner.
Scott takes considerable pride in NOORDAM. He was the ship’s first
master and stood by her for five months while she was being constructed at
the Fincantieri yard near Venice, Italy. “It was really quite spectacular
watching it all come into the yard. Dozens of trucks a day coming in
putting all the stuff on. It was a massive operation to get it all here.”
“QE2 is a lovely ship, a beautiful ship. I thoroughly enjoyed my time
on her.” Captain Scott points out proudly that he was responsible for a
number of innovations on QE2 including the radar mast over the
wheelhouse, the gangways used in cruise ports, and the faux-wood
paneling on the bridge. “I can look at the photographs and say that is
before I was there or that is while I was there or that is mine or that is
mine.”
The two ships are similar in size. QE2 is 963 feet long while
NOORDAM is 960 feet. Both ships are approximately 106 feet wide.
NOORDAM is somewhat larger in gross tonnage: 82,300 versus 70,327.
Along the same lines, NOORDAM carries approximately 1,900
passengers versus 1,728 for QE2, although earlier in QE2’s career, her
passenger capacity was somewhat higher.
At that point the similarities end. QE2 was built in the late 1960s
based upon a unique design. Her long, sleek hull was designed to cut
through the rough waters of the North Atlantic and has steel as thick as a
warship. She is propelled by two traditional propeller shafts attached to
two electric motors which are powered by nine diesel electric engines. Her
original cost was ₤30 million but Cunard estimates that it has spent 15
times that amount on refitting her over the last 40 years including a ₤180
million conversion from steam to diesel-electric power in 1986.
Delivered to Holland America in 2006, NOORDAM cost
approximately $400 million and is the latest version of the “Vista” cruise
ship design. NOORDAM is the fourth ship of this design purchased by
HAL but differs from her sisters in that her stern superstructure has been
lengthened to yield 35 more cabins. “Our stern is about 200 tons heavier
than the other ships.” This addition also required strengthening the ship’s
bulbous bow to compensate for the added weight in the stern. However,
“structurally, there isn’t much difference between this ship and the three
older ships.”
“This is actually the fifth Vista-class ship built even though there are
only four in our fleet. P&O’s ARCADIA is basically our ship. It originally
was to go to Cunard as the QUEEN VICTORIA but it went to P&O.
Technically, by and large, she is the same. Structurally and appearance-
wise, she is very similar to this. It was modified a little bit to make her look
more like a Cunarder and then re-modified in order to make her look like a
P&O ship. She is, however, one of our five hulls, if you like. The
underwater hull design has been used by Costa, Carnival, now P&O, and
ourselves. So, basically, the underwater hull is quite well used.”
Cunard’s QUEEN VICTORIA, which recently went into service, also
bears a relation to NOORDAM. “The new one, QUEEN VICTORIA, is
a little bit longer, a little bit more powerful, and should be a little bit faster.
But basically, she is an improved and up-rated version of this design. I’m
not sure what the steel thickness specification is or what the interior fit out
is like but they may be making her more of a liner. She will be longer and
therefore a little bit sleeker than these ships and then you start to look more
like a liner.”
Instead of a traditional propeller shaft arrangement as on QE2,
NOORDAM is propelled by two “azipods,” which can turn 360 degrees
to propel the ship in any direction. Captain Scott described an azipod as
having “the profile of a rudder.” At the bottom, there is the electric motor
and the propeller is at the front pulling the ship through the water. Having
the propeller in the front means that it is turning in undisturbed water - -
“there is no interference of the water flow coming out under the ship and
around the side of the ship. So, then you get a better flow of water on the
propeller. Whereas conventionally, the propeller is at the end, so you have
the framing, the brackets, and the propeller shaft interfering with the water
flow. With the pods, you just get a straight pull of undisturbed water. The
azipod is about 5 or 6% more efficient than the standard propeller because
of the better water flow. [In addition,] it frees up space within the ship
because you don’t have the electric motor in the stern sheets and you don’t
have stern thrusters. So, it’s a rudder, propulsion and a stern thruster all in
one unit. It gives you a lot more power down in the stern to move the ship
around.”
Whereas QE2 obtains her power from nine diesel engines, powering
NOORDAM’s pods are a diesel electric system and a gas turbine system.
While Cunard’s QUEEN MARY 2 uses its gas turbine engine to generate
the extra power needed for a transatlantic crossing, such a system was
included in NOORDAM for environmental reasons. “It was put in for
going to Alaska and ports where we need a very, very clean exhaust.”
While NOORDAM’s hull does not have the same thickness of steel as
QE2, she has very good water-tight integrity. “We’re actually more than
double hulled. In many places, we have two or three rows of tanks. They
have an outer hull, framing, an inner hull, and quite often we have another
set of tanks on top of that. The ship is divided into water tight zones down
in the lower part of the ship. We have watertight doors that slide across
and huge hydraulically-powered doors and we can break the ship into
zones. We could flood two or three zones.”
“QE2 was built to run across the Atlantic and to do cruising as a
sideline. This ship was built as a cruise ship. QE2 is enormously more
powerful than this ship. We have 48,000 horse power propulsion-wise
and she [has] 130,000 horse power.” Actually, Captain Scott noted, no
one is sure how much power QE2 has because when her power plant was
built there was no means of testing the amount of power the system was
capable of generating. “So they took the propulsion motors up to the limit
of the thing that they could test it against and said okay that’s enough. So
nobody is ever quite sure how much power you could get out of those
motors.” As a result, “she has very fine lines and she is very, very fast.”
Indeed, QE2 is the fastest passenger ship in service, capable of 33 knots.
In contrast, NOORDAM can “do about 22.8 or 23 knots. But, it
depends on what we are doing. If we are up in the cold latitudes, then we
can go faster. At present [during a Caribbean cruise], we are running three
AC compressors to keep the air conditioning going. We are using about
11.9 megawatts of power, basically for lights, air conditioning, and that
type of thing. We are using about 28.4 [megawatts] for propulsion. We
actually slow down during the day. Then, once the galley stops and all the
entertainment stops, the extra electricity goes to the propulsion motors in
the pods so actually our speed varies depending on the temperature, and
also what time of day it is. We slow down about three quarters of a knot
as everything starts going for the day.”
While QE2 would be the clear winner in a point-to-point race,
NOORDAM has the edge when it comes to maneuverability. “QE2 has
one enormous rudder and only 900 horsepower bow thrusters. She goes
very fast in one direction, she goes around corners very well at fast speed,
but when she comes to slow speeds, it can be very exciting. Whereas here
on NOORDAM, we have got 7 and a half thousand horsepower bow
thrusters and when we turn the pods around, in the maneuvering mode, we
have got about 16,000 horsepower down aft to go sideways. So, it a
completely different capability of maneuvering between the two ships.”
One result is that NOORDAM is less dependent on tugs, making her less
expensive to run.
In addition, NOORDAM’s better maneuverability and shallower draft
make her more suited for cruising. QE2 could not dock in many of the
cruise ports visited by NOORDAM. Indeed, Captain Scott could only
think of three ports in the Caribbean where QE2 could go along side. This
is a big disadvantage because tendering “is inconvenient for guests by and
large. They want to be able to walk straight ashore. People do prefer to
walk off, more than anything else.”
Life onboard the two ships also differed. “Different style of
passenger, different expectations. The passengers here have come for a
vacation. They haven’t come as a means of transportation. Operationally,
all summer, [on QE2] it was basically the liner run. We had to run a
different style because of the North Atlantic weather - - things had to be
screwed down, lashed down, a lot more than we need here. It came with
different expectations. Many people use the QE2 as a means of
transportation, instead of flying. They would come because they wanted to
go from New York to Southampton. They didn’t come because they
wanted to cruise from New York to Southampton, they had to get from
New York to Southampton. They couldn’t, wouldn’t, or didn’t want to
fly. We also had people who were interested in working “
“QE2, probably because of the run she did, had more people who
were better known. People, if they were going to New York from
Southampton, some of them were doing it for a short vacation, five days.
So, there were some celebrities, some well known political figures, some
well known business figures, quite a lot of old established money. Here,
people are successful but they are more low key. You do get some
surprises here but on Cunard you were a little more aware of them. Also,
because officers had more to do with passengers, you had to deal with
them and see them.”
In June, it was announced that QE2 would be leaving service in 2008
in order to became a floating hotel in Dubai. While this decision has sealed
QE2’s fate, the question remains whether the 40 year-old ship could have
remained in service. “Structurally, certainly hull-wise, she has got 60 years
left.” Along the same lines, the age of the power plant was not an obstacle
to continued operation. When the new engines were installed in 1986, it
was predicted that they would last until 2010. However, “engines are
replaceable. You can keep replacing parts. We blew one up back when I
was onboard. We had to cut a hole in the side and take one whole engine
out. So, if they had to, they could cut a hole in the side and just slide them
out and put new ones in. It is not a huge job.”
However, there were several issues that did pose an obstacle to the
ship’s continuing viability as a business. First, there was the problem of
removing the wooden elements of the ship’s interior so as to make her
compliant with the Safety of Life as Sea Regulations that go into effect in
2010.
Second, when ships get old their pipes start to go. In addition, some
of the related operating systems are no longer state-of-the-art and are
costly to operate. “There are things like she doesn’t have a vacuum toilet
system. She has the strong-wristed rush of sea water type ones. In this
day and age, you really have to have a vacuum system because of the
volume of liquid.”
Finally, some of the accommodations on QE2 no longer measure up
to the accommodations passengers expect on modern cruise ships. “I think
the original One Deck cabins are ageless. Those lovely original cabins,
they will never age. Deck Two midships, the middle section, that is nice.
But where she starts curing near the Computer room, there are some pretty
boxy cabins in there. [From a business perspective] whether she is worth
gutting those sections and putting new accommodations in, I don’t
know.”
from working on banana boats and sheep carriers to commanding some of
the most luxurious passenger ships afloat. He is presently captain and
master of Holland America Line’s NOORDAM, that company’s latest
cruise ship. Before coming to Holland America in 1995, he was Chief
Officer on the legendary QUEEN ELIZABETH 2. As a result, he is
uniquely situated to discuss some of the similarities and differences between
a modern cruise ship such as NOORDAM and the venerable ocean liner.
Scott takes considerable pride in NOORDAM. He was the ship’s first
master and stood by her for five months while she was being constructed at
the Fincantieri yard near Venice, Italy. “It was really quite spectacular
watching it all come into the yard. Dozens of trucks a day coming in
putting all the stuff on. It was a massive operation to get it all here.”
“QE2 is a lovely ship, a beautiful ship. I thoroughly enjoyed my time
on her.” Captain Scott points out proudly that he was responsible for a
number of innovations on QE2 including the radar mast over the
wheelhouse, the gangways used in cruise ports, and the faux-wood
paneling on the bridge. “I can look at the photographs and say that is
before I was there or that is while I was there or that is mine or that is
mine.”
The two ships are similar in size. QE2 is 963 feet long while
NOORDAM is 960 feet. Both ships are approximately 106 feet wide.
NOORDAM is somewhat larger in gross tonnage: 82,300 versus 70,327.
Along the same lines, NOORDAM carries approximately 1,900
passengers versus 1,728 for QE2, although earlier in QE2’s career, her
passenger capacity was somewhat higher.
At that point the similarities end. QE2 was built in the late 1960s
based upon a unique design. Her long, sleek hull was designed to cut
through the rough waters of the North Atlantic and has steel as thick as a
warship. She is propelled by two traditional propeller shafts attached to
two electric motors which are powered by nine diesel electric engines. Her
original cost was ₤30 million but Cunard estimates that it has spent 15
times that amount on refitting her over the last 40 years including a ₤180
million conversion from steam to diesel-electric power in 1986.
Delivered to Holland America in 2006, NOORDAM cost
approximately $400 million and is the latest version of the “Vista” cruise
ship design. NOORDAM is the fourth ship of this design purchased by
HAL but differs from her sisters in that her stern superstructure has been
lengthened to yield 35 more cabins. “Our stern is about 200 tons heavier
than the other ships.” This addition also required strengthening the ship’s
bulbous bow to compensate for the added weight in the stern. However,
“structurally, there isn’t much difference between this ship and the three
older ships.”
“This is actually the fifth Vista-class ship built even though there are
only four in our fleet. P&O’s ARCADIA is basically our ship. It originally
was to go to Cunard as the QUEEN VICTORIA but it went to P&O.
Technically, by and large, she is the same. Structurally and appearance-
wise, she is very similar to this. It was modified a little bit to make her look
more like a Cunarder and then re-modified in order to make her look like a
P&O ship. She is, however, one of our five hulls, if you like. The
underwater hull design has been used by Costa, Carnival, now P&O, and
ourselves. So, basically, the underwater hull is quite well used.”
Cunard’s QUEEN VICTORIA, which recently went into service, also
bears a relation to NOORDAM. “The new one, QUEEN VICTORIA, is
a little bit longer, a little bit more powerful, and should be a little bit faster.
But basically, she is an improved and up-rated version of this design. I’m
not sure what the steel thickness specification is or what the interior fit out
is like but they may be making her more of a liner. She will be longer and
therefore a little bit sleeker than these ships and then you start to look more
like a liner.”
Instead of a traditional propeller shaft arrangement as on QE2,
NOORDAM is propelled by two “azipods,” which can turn 360 degrees
to propel the ship in any direction. Captain Scott described an azipod as
having “the profile of a rudder.” At the bottom, there is the electric motor
and the propeller is at the front pulling the ship through the water. Having
the propeller in the front means that it is turning in undisturbed water - -
“there is no interference of the water flow coming out under the ship and
around the side of the ship. So, then you get a better flow of water on the
propeller. Whereas conventionally, the propeller is at the end, so you have
the framing, the brackets, and the propeller shaft interfering with the water
flow. With the pods, you just get a straight pull of undisturbed water. The
azipod is about 5 or 6% more efficient than the standard propeller because
of the better water flow. [In addition,] it frees up space within the ship
because you don’t have the electric motor in the stern sheets and you don’t
have stern thrusters. So, it’s a rudder, propulsion and a stern thruster all in
one unit. It gives you a lot more power down in the stern to move the ship
around.”
Whereas QE2 obtains her power from nine diesel engines, powering
NOORDAM’s pods are a diesel electric system and a gas turbine system.
While Cunard’s QUEEN MARY 2 uses its gas turbine engine to generate
the extra power needed for a transatlantic crossing, such a system was
included in NOORDAM for environmental reasons. “It was put in for
going to Alaska and ports where we need a very, very clean exhaust.”
While NOORDAM’s hull does not have the same thickness of steel as
QE2, she has very good water-tight integrity. “We’re actually more than
double hulled. In many places, we have two or three rows of tanks. They
have an outer hull, framing, an inner hull, and quite often we have another
set of tanks on top of that. The ship is divided into water tight zones down
in the lower part of the ship. We have watertight doors that slide across
and huge hydraulically-powered doors and we can break the ship into
zones. We could flood two or three zones.”
“QE2 was built to run across the Atlantic and to do cruising as a
sideline. This ship was built as a cruise ship. QE2 is enormously more
powerful than this ship. We have 48,000 horse power propulsion-wise
and she [has] 130,000 horse power.” Actually, Captain Scott noted, no
one is sure how much power QE2 has because when her power plant was
built there was no means of testing the amount of power the system was
capable of generating. “So they took the propulsion motors up to the limit
of the thing that they could test it against and said okay that’s enough. So
nobody is ever quite sure how much power you could get out of those
motors.” As a result, “she has very fine lines and she is very, very fast.”
Indeed, QE2 is the fastest passenger ship in service, capable of 33 knots.
In contrast, NOORDAM can “do about 22.8 or 23 knots. But, it
depends on what we are doing. If we are up in the cold latitudes, then we
can go faster. At present [during a Caribbean cruise], we are running three
AC compressors to keep the air conditioning going. We are using about
11.9 megawatts of power, basically for lights, air conditioning, and that
type of thing. We are using about 28.4 [megawatts] for propulsion. We
actually slow down during the day. Then, once the galley stops and all the
entertainment stops, the extra electricity goes to the propulsion motors in
the pods so actually our speed varies depending on the temperature, and
also what time of day it is. We slow down about three quarters of a knot
as everything starts going for the day.”
While QE2 would be the clear winner in a point-to-point race,
NOORDAM has the edge when it comes to maneuverability. “QE2 has
one enormous rudder and only 900 horsepower bow thrusters. She goes
very fast in one direction, she goes around corners very well at fast speed,
but when she comes to slow speeds, it can be very exciting. Whereas here
on NOORDAM, we have got 7 and a half thousand horsepower bow
thrusters and when we turn the pods around, in the maneuvering mode, we
have got about 16,000 horsepower down aft to go sideways. So, it a
completely different capability of maneuvering between the two ships.”
One result is that NOORDAM is less dependent on tugs, making her less
expensive to run.
In addition, NOORDAM’s better maneuverability and shallower draft
make her more suited for cruising. QE2 could not dock in many of the
cruise ports visited by NOORDAM. Indeed, Captain Scott could only
think of three ports in the Caribbean where QE2 could go along side. This
is a big disadvantage because tendering “is inconvenient for guests by and
large. They want to be able to walk straight ashore. People do prefer to
walk off, more than anything else.”
Life onboard the two ships also differed. “Different style of
passenger, different expectations. The passengers here have come for a
vacation. They haven’t come as a means of transportation. Operationally,
all summer, [on QE2] it was basically the liner run. We had to run a
different style because of the North Atlantic weather - - things had to be
screwed down, lashed down, a lot more than we need here. It came with
different expectations. Many people use the QE2 as a means of
transportation, instead of flying. They would come because they wanted to
go from New York to Southampton. They didn’t come because they
wanted to cruise from New York to Southampton, they had to get from
New York to Southampton. They couldn’t, wouldn’t, or didn’t want to
fly. We also had people who were interested in working “
“QE2, probably because of the run she did, had more people who
were better known. People, if they were going to New York from
Southampton, some of them were doing it for a short vacation, five days.
So, there were some celebrities, some well known political figures, some
well known business figures, quite a lot of old established money. Here,
people are successful but they are more low key. You do get some
surprises here but on Cunard you were a little more aware of them. Also,
because officers had more to do with passengers, you had to deal with
them and see them.”
In June, it was announced that QE2 would be leaving service in 2008
in order to became a floating hotel in Dubai. While this decision has sealed
QE2’s fate, the question remains whether the 40 year-old ship could have
remained in service. “Structurally, certainly hull-wise, she has got 60 years
left.” Along the same lines, the age of the power plant was not an obstacle
to continued operation. When the new engines were installed in 1986, it
was predicted that they would last until 2010. However, “engines are
replaceable. You can keep replacing parts. We blew one up back when I
was onboard. We had to cut a hole in the side and take one whole engine
out. So, if they had to, they could cut a hole in the side and just slide them
out and put new ones in. It is not a huge job.”
However, there were several issues that did pose an obstacle to the
ship’s continuing viability as a business. First, there was the problem of
removing the wooden elements of the ship’s interior so as to make her
compliant with the Safety of Life as Sea Regulations that go into effect in
2010.
Second, when ships get old their pipes start to go. In addition, some
of the related operating systems are no longer state-of-the-art and are
costly to operate. “There are things like she doesn’t have a vacuum toilet
system. She has the strong-wristed rush of sea water type ones. In this
day and age, you really have to have a vacuum system because of the
volume of liquid.”
Finally, some of the accommodations on QE2 no longer measure up
to the accommodations passengers expect on modern cruise ships. “I think
the original One Deck cabins are ageless. Those lovely original cabins,
they will never age. Deck Two midships, the middle section, that is nice.
But where she starts curing near the Computer room, there are some pretty
boxy cabins in there. [From a business perspective] whether she is worth
gutting those sections and putting new accommodations in, I don’t
know.”
Thoughts on NOORDAM and
QE2
An Interview With Captain
John Scott
by RICHARD H. WAGNER
QE2
An Interview With Captain
John Scott
by RICHARD H. WAGNER
More about Noordam on
the
NOORDAM PROFILE
PAGE
There is also more about
QE2 on the
QE2 Profile Page
the
NOORDAM PROFILE
PAGE
There is also more about
QE2 on the
QE2 Profile Page
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