World's largest cruise ship sets sail

Helsinki: Nearly two and a half years under construction, the world's largest cruise liner, Oasis of the Seas, has begun its maiden voyage to Florida, USA. Its owners, Royal Caribbean International, had commissioned the ship with STX Europe at a cost of euro1 billion ($1.5 billion).

STX Europe, formerly Aker Yards ASA, is owned by the South Korean industrial chaebol STX Corporation, and is the largest shipbuilding group in Europe. The ship was constructed at the group's STX Finland Oy shipyard in south-west Finland.

The 16-deck Oasis of the Seas spans 360 meters from bow to stern. Its 2,700 cabins can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2100 crew. The 12-day voyage to its homeport in Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale will be conducted with Captain William S Wright at the helm. 

At 225,282 gross registered tons, the ship eclipses the US Navy's Nimitz-class super-carriers in size, is five times the size of the Titanic and half as large as the mammoth Queen Mary 2.

The important aspect of the design of the ship is not its mammoth size, but its utilisation of space. The vast areas of space now available have been filled with attractions not seen on a cruise ship before.

These include an open-air park with trees and hanging gardens, a boardwalk-style area with a merry-go-round, an aquatic amphitheatre, the AquaTheater, that serves as a pool by day and a dazzling ocean front theatre by night, and a theatre that will put on the Broadway musical "Hairspray."

There is also a casino.

All this radical re-design has been made possible with the designers placing rooms on either side of a central concourse, which now provides an airy, glass-enclosed atrium at the core. The atrium is larger than a football field.

The Royal Promenade and Central Park are just two of seven "neighbourhoods" on the Oasis. Also provided is an open-air Boardwalk, complete with faux wood tiles, leading to a high-diving pool at the end of the ship. Here up to 600 guests can watch acrobatics and synchronized swimming with the ocean as a background.

On the higher decks are four swimming pools, two rock-climbing walls, a miniature-golf course, a jogging track, a basketball court and two water rides that simulate surfing. Positioned close-by are luxury lofts and penthouses that can cost as much as $34,000 per week.

Below decks are a big children's play area, a sizable gym and spa, and an entertainment section with a theatre, ice rink that seats 780 spectators, casino, comedy stage and several nightclubs, as well as a small-scale golf course.

This enormous juggernaut can cruise through the ocean at a speed of 22 knots.

A marvel of engineering, the ship has been built through the modular mode of construction, which eschews the traditional mode of construction, that is building from the bottom up, a deck at a time. Instead, huge blocks, as large as buildings, are constructed on shore, and then hoisted onto the ship's keel to be welded into place.

The Oasis is put together with 181 such blocks, each weighing about 600 tons.