heres my second question re the carnival holiday class
i see the jubilee was built around 1985 by a company called kockums in sweden, who primarily
build military ships.
in doing a little more research it appears the jubilee was the only cruise ship ever build by kockums, for any line.
my question if anybody would happen to know is why tool up a yard for a new ship type and only build 1 ever
it doesn't look like there were any major design flaws as the ship is still in service for P&O australia.

did kockums decide there wasn't enough profit in cruise ships?
did kockums decide there was better profit in military ships?
or was there something else that either soured kockums on building cruise ships?
or perhaps something that soured the cruise industry on kuckums as a cruise ship builder?

Pictures of the Kockums "famous" crane: www.varvshistoria.com

My understanding is that the yard went through financial troubles around this time and went through a significant reorganization.

Building cruise ships is very specialized and competitive, to the point where there are now only three major companies building cruise ships in the whole world. Basically only the biggest and strongest players have survived. There is a whole list of yards that stopped building cruise ships at some point in the past 30 years or so. Some of them don't exist any more, some of them consciously decided to stop building cruise ships and some simply never got any more cruise ship orders.

The past few decades have been a period of crisis for European shipbuilding; building cruise ships has in some ways "saved" some yards because it is so specialized (unlike most other kinds of ships, which can be built cheaper in China, Korea, etc.), but at the same time, even that has been a very difficult segment, as it has become concentrated on the largest yards that have the most expertise and ability to build the largest and most complicated ships.

Military shipbuilding is also quite attractive for European yards that can get the business because again it is quite specialized and you have the added advantage of doing business with government, which is likely to favor its own national shipyards. A European country is not going to go to China to build its military vessels because it is cheaper!

[ 10-11-2009: Message edited by: dougnewman ]

quote:

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Originally posted by rampartpa:
hi again

heres my second question re the carnival holiday class
i see the jubilee was built around 1985 by a company called kockums in sweden, who primarily
build military ships.
in doing a little more research it appears the jubilee was the only cruise ship ever build by kockums, for any line.
my question if anybody would happen to know is why tool up a yard for a new ship type and only build 1 ever
it doesn't look like there were any major design flaws as the ship is still in service for P&O australia.

did kockums decide there wasn't enough profit in cruise ships?
did kockums decide there was better profit in military ships?
or was there something else that either soured kockums on building cruise ships?
or perhaps something that soured the cruise industry on kuckums as a cruise ship builder?

just wondering
Micth

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Hi Mitch,

Kockums only switched to building military ships after they experienced a major crisis in shipbuilding in the early 80s, which reached its very lowest point with the construction of JUBILEE and CELEBRATION. Basically these two gave the company the final push into bankruptcy. Later they restructured an re-emerged as a very high-tech submarine builder.

Something similar happened with the Carnival Fantasy class, the first of these ships (FANTASY and ECSTASY) forced Wärtsila into bankruptcy.

The Aalborg yard also didn't build much after the HOLIDAY! Although I understand that was more due to the size restrictions of the yard (they carried on building ships at Frederikshavn as Danyard until sometime in the 90s).

quote:

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Originally posted by rd77:

Hi Mitch,

Kockums only switched to building military ships after they experienced a major crisis in shipbuilding in the early 80s, which reached its very lowest point with the construction of JUBILEE and CELEBRATION. Basically these two gave the company the final push into bankruptcy. Later they restructured an re-emerged as a very high-tech submarine builder.

Something similar happened with the Carnival Fantasy class, the first of these ships (FANTASY and ECSTASY) forced Wärtsila into bankruptcy.

The Aalborg yard also didn't build much after the HOLIDAY! Although I understand that was more due to the size restrictions of the yard (they carried on building ships at Frederikshavn as Danyard until sometime in the 90s).

Brgds.
Ralph

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quote:

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Originally posted by DEIx15x8:

How does having ships to build force a company into bankruptcy? Did they receive penalties, over shoot the deadline, or under estimate the costs?

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I worked in Carnival Operations during those years, and believe me, CCL drove a very hard bargain with every vendor and company they dealt with. I'm sure the shipyards did not make a profit on anything they built for Carnival back then. It was almost an inside joke that Aalborg, Kockums, and Wartsila went broke dealing with CCL, but that's how tight they ran things and one of the reasons Carnival rose to such high profitability so early.

I highly recommend the book "Devils on the Deep Blue Sea" for an in-depth, behind-the-scenes look at how Carnival and the other big cruise lines operated during the early days. It consistently points out CCL's penchant for squeezing pennies for maximum cost-effectiveness.

Rich

[ 10-11-2009: Message edited by: Linerrich ]

you know i could have sworn all three of the holiday class were built by different yards
but in rereading you were right both the jubilee, and the celebration were built by kockums

which in at my mind at least makes a little sense
because i can imagine there would be substantial costs involved in tooling up for a product (in this case cruise ships) that you haven't manufactured before.

it would also seem to make more sense to spread the costs involved out over a two or three ship production.

i can imagine that carnival would drive a tough bargin

looking back it is hard to believe the holiday class was the oasis of the seas, of its day.
(biggest, flashiest) absolutely huge for their time.

if i recall correctly many of the same things said about oasis were also said about the holiday class
(too large, never fully sell the ship, they will overrun the islands with tourists)

then within five years the battle began
sovereign of the seas vs fantsay
and onward from there.
to where now you could almost fit what? four, five celebrations into an oasis of the seas?