Princess Kaguya A new queen of the seas or hot air

[Dave Gittins]

If all goes well, we may have cruise ship that will make Titanic look like a dinghy. I think she would be the longest ship of any kind ever built, though not the heaviest. The people behind this ambitious scheme have some achievements to their credit, though so far only on terra firma.

http://www.princesskaguya.com/index.htm

One problem I see with their idea is the security that surrounds cruise ships today. Could they really get thousands of visitors per day onto the ship? Could they dock such a ship? Keep an eye on this one!

 

[Richard Stover]

It looks like a floating box to me. At least in the olden days ships had style and weren't cookie-cutter like most seem to be nowadays. Just my opinion though.
This thing supposed to have lifeboats anywhere? God forbid something disastrous happens to a ship that size.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>The size of the ship, 450,000GT, 505m length 58m breadth hull, 20 decks...<<

Rather grandiose, but at least technically practical. Far more so then that rediculously huge World Ship design that was kicked around a few years ago. Whether or not this beast will be economically viable is a completely different matter.

I don't even want to think about the potential carnage should something bad happen to her, but the designers had better have it foremost on their minds.

 

[Jason Schleisman]

EEWW!! Just my opinion, but I don't like it at all. One could spend all day every day for the duration of an entire cruise forever walking and still never see the entire thing. Just imagine (or not) if that baby was hit by a Poseidon wave. The wave aside, I don't think it would be possible to evacuate a ship that size in a timely fashion should the need arise.

 

[Timothy Trower]

The day is fast approaching when a terrorist group of some sort will succeed in bombing and or sinking one of these massive cruise ships, with a loss of life that will make the Titanic pale in comparison.

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>The wave aside, I don't think it would be possible to evacuate a ship that size in a timely fashion should the need arise.<<

In most scenerios, getting the people off is not likely to be the problem. Getting them transferred to rescue vessels would be. How many passnger vessels out there now have accomadations for up to 13,000 passengers and crew? And the vast majority of commercial vessels are freighters with little signifigant accomadation to speak of.

 

[Matthew Bird]

looks nice, i think!

I like the concept of locals in ports being able to go aboard and use the facilites- Do other cruise ships do this?

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>Do other cruise ships do this?<<

Don't know. I doubt it. Security concerns being what they are, the shipping lines and the authorities would take a very dim view of anyone other then passengers, crew, and authorized visitors such as vendors and tech reps going aboard.

 

[Dave Gittins]

In my home port of Port Adelaide, everybody is barred from visiting ships, or even standing on the wharf next to one. Security has been greatly tightened in the last four or five years.

One thing that bothers me about the proposed ship is the lifeboats. The drawings show 38 boats. Allowing the maximum of 150 persons per boat we get seats for 5,700. Applying the 75% rule, we get a maximum permissible ships' company of 7,600.

The proposal to carry 8,400 passengers, plus crew, is just not on. They'd need 56 boats for the passengers alone.

 

[George L. Lorton]

She's so big! That would be a lot evacuate. God forbid she was hit by a rouge wave or bombed. Scary thought. I hope they have planes for these eventualities

 

[Jason Schleisman]

quote:

I hope they have planes for these eventualities

Or at least hydrogen blimps.

 

[George L. Lorton]

 

[Michael H. Standart]

>>I hope they have planes for these eventualities<<

Unless they can drop dozens of liferafts in the area of the accident, airplanes will be next to useless. Even the few seaplanes which are in service today could not collectively hold the thousands who would end up swimming for their lives.

 

[George L. Lorton]

I meant plans! Sorry when I was typing my two year old was trying to get my attention. Unfortunately my post suffered for it. Planes indeed.

quote:

I hope they have plans for these eventualities.

Not Planes.

 

[Jason Schleisman]

Oh! I thought you were serious George! That's why I mentioned blimps. (although I was NOT serious)

I think that due to the lack of lifeboats seen along the sides of this ship, they might be considering the implementing of some new inflatable lifeboat type thingy like this:

http://www.liferaftsystems.com.au/products.cgi?task=DETAIL&articleID=513

 

[George L. Lorton]

Thanks for the link Jason.

Reminds me of Airplane, seeing those people sliding down that slide. Looks fun! I wonder how it would be in rough seas though. One of the photo captions says the Marines are using it so I guess they are safe enough or they have it all planed out in case of an emergency evacuation of the ship.

 

[David G. Brown]

I don't know why you're worried, these new ships are practically unsinkable. And, it's been so long since any big ship was lost that it's almost unthinkable it could happen again. Modern shipbuilding has gone past that.

-- David G. Brown

 

[George L. Lorton]

David:"Modern shipbuilding has gone past that."

We've all heard these lines before.

 

[David G. Brown]

Deja vu all over again, eh?

-- David G. Brown

 

[George L. Lorton]

Yeah David-

Thats all I hope it ends up being all over again.