MSC Preziosa visits Stornaway
The Telegraph reports on a 139,000-ton cruise ship sailing around Scotland’s Western Isles, describing how it was forced to anchor outside of the port of Stornoway because it was too big to get inside. Makes for a good headline, but surely they knew before they got there?
MSC Preziosa, which measures the length of seven jumbo jets, visited the town of 6,000 people, including some close family relatives, in the Outer Hebrides on Monday. Stornoway is the main town of the Western Isles and the capital of Lewis and Harris. Beautiful place on a good day!
The Telegraph continues “However, it was too long (1,100ft) and deep to get near the berth’s dock and so had to remain in the outer anchorage, south of Arnish lighthouse, during the stay”. Once again, surely they were aware of this before they arrived?
The MSC Preziosa is in the top 70 giant passenger cruise ships in the world and can carry up to 4,345 passengers in its 1,745 cabins. 1,388 crew members are required to operate it. It can reach a maximum speed of 24.21 knots or 24mph (again some poor reporting? – somebody can enlighten me on the math).
The largest-ever cruise liner to visit the Western Isles, MSC Preziosa, dwarfs the local CalMac ferry.
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1 knot is 1.15 mph so, 24.21 knots equates to 27.84 mph and of course they would have well known about not being able to fit alongside the town’s quay as these cruises are planned at least two years in advance.
It bemuses me, all this talk of a € 150 million extension for Funchal, when the only time we see cruise ships anchored off the port, due to lack of berths, and using tenders to ferry their passengers ashore, is New Years Eve.
Of course there are larger cruise ships that the 5,600 pax Carnival Corporation’s Excellence class ( AIDA Nova / Iona ) that visit Funchal but they are specifically built for the American Florida – Caribbean market so unless APRAM know something we don’t I just don’t see the demand from the Canaries circuit and migrating Caribbean / Mediterranean trade to warrant an extension.
The port is after all open 365 days a year despite the “season” and although technically there are 4 berths, 3 vessels is more common ( 2 large ships on the South Quay and 1 medium on the North side ) capable of bringing in 10,000 pax as we have seen, so with a potential for over a thousand cruise ships we, year on year, see less than 350 which represents around 30 % of potential capacity – hardly figures to inspire many financial institutions to part with 150 million in the commercial world !!
Should you rename yourselves: “ANYTHING BUT, Madeira News”????
Sorry Jamie, I thought it interesting to see one of the cruise ships that regularly turn up here in a completely different context!
Admin, I was a bit, why is this story here, as you didn’t mention, like Jamie, it was a frequent caller to Madeira but thought with all the comments about the Madeira cruise ships, the size and number calling in and the comments both in favour and against I could see a connection with the island. Perhaps next time you could just use the photograph with the Caption,
The Big Ship sails on the Allie Allie Ooh