Last night we had an “official” e.g. planned, black out from 20.00 – 22.00 hrs. Everybody was advised to leave the ship as there would absolutely no light available in the cabins. The two hour black out was meant to test the Emergency Generator and the Emergency Batteries under load. If there is enough power from there then the emergency systems can continue to work and it was tested extensively. The Emergency alarms were beeping and bleating through the whole ship without stopping until everybody was nearly going nuts. But it is an extremely important test and thus it had to be done. A lot of the crew descended upon the only café directly outside the Gate and the owner did very good business. I think he would not mind a few more blackouts.

The Grand Dutch Cafe is nearing completion. The time for Bitter balls and a Heineken is not far away.

The stocking/loading of the ship continues at a steady pace but the ware house is not getting any emptier as more and more trucks are arriving. Today we had a 40 foot container with large Audio /visual panels and monitors for the public spaces. Some of them were crated up and so large you could never have walked away with them but others where regular size TV boxes and could be prone to be picked up by “Collectors”. These sorts of things go straight on board and are locked away in completed Guest cabins where the door goes on double lock. A lock can always be by-passed of course but only with brute force. If the door would be opened with an electronic key then this entry can be verified by the Security Officer and key & owner identified.  There is a very good security system in the shipyard both with security at the entrances to the ship but also with roving fire patrols who apart from checking safe work practices – so there will be no fire- are also continuously checking if the doors to occupied cabins are completely locked. I moved cabins today and while moving my suitcase into the new cabin, I left the door ajar and 30 seconds later I had a Fire Guard poking his nose in. Into the ship there are three entrances, the forward one for HAL personnel only, and the other two for the yard people. Everything that comes OFF those two gangways is very carefully checked.  Ours is less of an issue as we live on board and thus only take things on board and not off the ship.

The whole ceiling of the Dining room is now visible and the tables are in place.

A lot of boxes which are now opened contain the furnishings for the lounges. Chairs for the Music Walk areas have arrived and also the tables and chairs for the Main Dining room. We are still waiting for chairs for the Pinnacle Grill and Explorers Lounge where there is still panel work going on. But give it one or two days and that will also be finished.

The full ceiling of the Queens lounge is now visible. Quite a feast for the eyes.

Although the Queens lounge is almost finished, scaffolding has gone up again as now the Sound and Vision guys are doing complicated things with speakers, lights and the Operators Booth. This Queens Lounge is basically a smaller version of the show lounges on the other ships with this difference that the Dance Floor is a lot bigger. This will be a great venue for the New Year’s Celebrations although it cannot hold 2500 people.

This is the Digital Workshop which is just waiting for the chairs.

Our painting friends are still making everybody’s life difficult, they are either in the way, or something is wet from paint and if not one of the two then we can smell the paint everywhere. The AC is running for the whole interior of the ship and our friends are of course also painting the grills which protect the fan room intakes. Luckily it does not go on continuously otherwise we would all eventually be walking around very happy from the thinner smell.

This is the walkway along the Culinary Arts Centre and a Lady Crew member is cleaning the Stainless Steel window frames.

We now have nearly all the crew on board and those who work in certain dedicated areas such as the Greenhouse Spa have been issued cleaning material and are starting to deep clean their own work areas. The ship is delivered dust free but there is a bit of a difference between what a ship yard considers dust free and what Holland America considers Spotless. We used to have the nickname in the 1920’s & 1930’s of being the “Spotless Fleet” and that ethic is still very much present in our today’s ship culture.  Thus I observed several cabins being open this morning and in two of them a crew member was happily sitting on the toilet and slowly removing paint splatters from the inside bathroom door. In another I saw two legs sticking out from under the bed and I thought……..that this  was taking it a bit too far in cleaning but it turned out she had lost an ear ring.

And thus shipyard life continues at a steady pace. There is still some big work being done on the upper decks such as the Centre Lido Area and the Crow’s nest but also there all the paneling is nearly in place and the fitting out is starting.  As long as it stays dry, things will go very fast.

While I am writing this, sitting in the Captains conference room, I am in the middle of a whirl of very nice Italian Ladies who are busy with cleaning the staff officers cabins while at the same time singing out loud to the background music. (Same tape as two days ago, so now we know exactly what is coming and we all can join in) This is the first day of the new work week and the number of yard people has increased again. A lot of finishing off work is carried out on the large cabins on the higher decks and the Officers cabins in the area behind the bridge.  The cabins which are finished are immediately tackled by the cleaning Ladies and then locked up for the final delivery.

The Kitchen has turned into “Box City” with all the equipment arriving.

For the ship side the storing process goes on relentlessly and the whole main galley has now been blocked by boxes, which are slowly but steadily unpacked and the crockery coming out is stacked on the shelves. Eventually it will have to be prewashed before it can be taken into use. That will be more than a full day’s work.  The Main dishwashers have not been handed over yet so it will have to wait until such time.

Carefully does it. HAL crockery is not cheap and a plate is easily dropped.

Another section nearing completion is the Culinary Operations Centre which has been greatly developed from what we were used to. On all the other ships the CAC is part of the Queens lounge or in the Movie theatre; here on the Koningsdam it now has its own dedicated area. It consists out of the Cooking Demonstration Area, an open Kitchen area where you can see the Chef really cooking and then a restaurant part where people can have dinner in the evening as well. Then there is a herb section in a sort of window display, where live herbs will be cultivated which are then used in the various cooking adventures.  The CAC is wedged in between a large wine display and the Wine Experience corner and that makes it possible to have mixed food & wine sessions.

The Culinary Arts Centre. The decoration on the walls, including the lights all have a cooking theme.

Looking out of the window I saw there was suddenly another Dutch ship in the port, the ms Heenvliet, not be constructed but to unload parts for another new build. We have now the Koningsdam and the Seabourn Encore fitting out but construction has already started on a next ship and a lot of steel sections/parts were unloaded. They were obviously constructed somewhere else and then brought by ship to the shipyard for further assembly.

A Dutch Coaster in the process of delivering to the yard. The listing is caused by the unloading of the sb. side first.

In the show lounge testing is also in full swing and yard people have been replaced by techno wizards who are sitting frowning over their laptops trying to figure out why something does not go beep when a button is pushed.  This is now the world of experts who speak in computer code instead of normal English that I can follow. But the first test movies are playing on the screen, split up onto three screen sections and it looks very impressive.  It is a total break from the traditional show stage as the guests sit in a 270o circle but I think it is going to blow their minds away. The other ships are already being outfitted with LED screens in the back of the stage but this is taking it to a completely higher level. It definitely has the WOW factor.

This photo does not give the right impact of the what is on the screen. Showing Whitney Houston.

What does not have the wow factor are our painting friends who have now descended upon the crew staircases and are painting the railings while traffic continues to go by. We have all been trained to always hold on to the railing while going up and down the stairs (One hand for the ship, One hand for yourself, as the saying goes) but today we learned very fast not to do this until there are no pots of paint insight anymore.

Apart from storing the ship, the crew is starting to be immersed in their safety trainings. We have a number of safety trainers on board who are a consultancy for Holland America and they will take care of the in-depth training of the specific crew members who will have to operate the assigned safety equipment.  We will see a lot of lifeboats going up and down in the coming days.  I am still working on the search plans for the ship as it has to fit in with the structural difference of this ship and the different mustering system. By now I know every locker and space by heart and how to get there the first way, now the challenge starts to find out who will be in charge of each and every locker on board.

The dry weather is still holding but it is chilly in Venice. Which is not a bad thing as with all the testing the A.C. is working but not always blowing cold air.

Today we had a reduced work force on board the ship again but it did not mean a reduction in noise as the General Alarm Testers were having a go at it. Today they lacked an English Announcer and we had to do with the pre-warning being in Italian but if an announcement is followed by the piercing 7 short beeps and 1 long one, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure out what it is all about. Hence today a larger number of crew could be observed walking around with ear plugs in.

Housekeeping in full swing with handing out boxes full of uniforms to a long line of crew standing just outside the door. The Uniform store is about triple the size of the tailor work area you see here.

A new contingent of crew arrived again today and apart from the compulsory safety indoctrination their first activity was to go to the Tailor Shop to get uniforms and (safety) shoes. This area is located deep in the dungeons of the ship on the lowest deck: C deck fwd. It is located there as the Main Ships Laundry is next door and also the very large linen and uniform stores.  In the past days the tailor shop has been stocked up with all the boxes from the warehouse. Some of these boxes, such as all the shoes, come directly from the manufacturer but most uniforms have been made on board the other ships and have been sent over to the Koningsdam warehouse. Every ship was asked to help out with making some sort of uniform and when I was recently on the Nieuw Amsterdam their part in the supply chain was making the black uniforms in use. These are made in three standards sizes: S.M.L. and then adapted to the exact size of the future wearer when handed out.

Laundry Master and troops putting the laundry machines through their first paces.

Another part of the operation which is now being started up is the Main Laundry. We are living on board now and thus we have towels, linen and bathmats which are changed in the same cycle as if the ship was already in operation. It is still only the crew living on board hence some of the laundry crew is still helping out with other chores in the ship.  In the coming days the work will increase here when the full crew is on board, and then a lot of cleaning material will come down as soon the major cleanup starts before the first guests are arriving on April 4^th. Holland America tries to use as much fabric cleaning towellets as possible instead of throw away material. Washing with water made on board from the waste heat of the engines is more environmental friendly than using boxes and boxes of –one-time-use-only.

Shorex Service Desks in the Lower Atrium on Deck 1 – Main Deck. The mural on the back wall has a nautical theme, which is continued on various panels in the hallways.

In the ship the sub – contractors are still working and some areas are receiving the finishing touches. One such an area is the Shorex –excursion desk on Deck 1- Main deck in the Atrium. It has been setup in quite a clever way as it can double up as a check – in counter, incase this has to happen on board and not in the terminal. On this deck is located the main entrance door to the ship. It is also in the open Atrium and you can look up to the Front Office itself which is located two decks higher on deck 3 – Promenade Deck.

Service with a smile. This is the first time in my life to see cooks working with hard hats on.

In the meantime with almost a 1000 crew on board or due on short notice, the catering also is taking on a more elaborate meaning. Officer’s Mess, Petty Officers Mess and Crew Mess are full to capacity during breakfast, lunch and dinner hours and the Culinary Operations Dept. is trying to make something special out of it. Warm meals are cooked A la Carte and the cold parts are on the buffets. Looking at the operation, the cooks are really enjoying this as they can be as creative as they want to be. The normal menu cycle is not in place yet and so they can cook. We often forget that the life of a supervising chef is nowadays more paperwork, food & cost control and ordering, than really doing the cooking.

As it is Sunday, the Cruise Director has organized a soccer field for those who want to play a game and there is a Coach going to the local shopping centre for those who forgot to pack their toothpaste. There are no shops in the close proximity of the ship so this is a great service.

Tomorrow the ship will be full again with shipyard people who had the weekend off and the fitting out will continue at full speed. I think that by the end of the coming week most public rooms will be ready, although they will only be officially delivered during the last week of March.

The weekend started today and the shipyard went a little bit quieter.  But it being so close to delivery means a lot of work still goes on, especially by the sub-contractors. Those are company hired by the shipyard on behalf of Holland America who do the specialist installation work. Quite a few of them also live on board and they will prefer to continue working anyway. If they finish ahead of schedule then they will not delay the ships operation and they can go home earlier as well. On the outside deck the painters are taking  advantage of the sunny weather to continue painting.  They have been told to paint, so they paint, much to the frustration of the supervising deck officers who only like those areas to be painted that are supposed to be painted. Sometimes there is a “conflict of interest” and then the supervisor has to be located and after a bit of high drama the work goes on as it is supposed to be done.

The outside white starts to sparkle more and more with the constant painting going on.

Saturday is also the day the shipyard removes equipment no longer needed. This is mostly electricity cables and portable sub stations which all the workers use for their tools.  Nobody in the shipyard uses the power sockets in the ship as A: the plugs often do not fit as half our ship is on 110Volts. B: you never know if the power remains on with all the testing going on, C: somebody will get very upset if you connect a tool which is too heavy and then short circuit a junction box or worse.  When the building starts there is no electricity on board at all of course, only steel bulkheads, and then the whole ship gets power from the outside by means of heavy cables leading to portable sub stations (a sort of multiple junction boxes) all over the ship. A sort of temporary power grid. These sub stations remain in use until an area is completed.  With the nice dry weather today the yard had erected a special off-loading platform in one of the provision access doors to make it all a bit easier.

Our crew will be kept busy as this is our warehouse and everything you see will go on board in the coming days.

The Koningsdam is different to the rest of the fleet in many areas but there is one area where it is completely different. This is the first Holland America ship which is built with the – return safe to home – principle. This means if one engine room burns out with all the controlling equipment, the other one should be able to bring the ship home. If the navigation bridge becomes unusable then there is a second (more basic) navigation bridge on the top deck which makes it possible for the Captain to still sail the ship. This sort of two ships into one ship necessitated a lot of changes to the ships construction. Cooling systems, Electrical systems, basically everything is separate so can be fully split up in case of an emergency.

A nice touch in the Bill board area. A lamp in the form of a Trombone. Visible for a day and then wrapped up again until delivery day.

In recent time there have been a few ships which due to an engine fire were completely without facilities for a few days.  And a few thousand people without flushing toilets and A.C. is not pleasant. Thus the new systems now ensure that basic services will always be available. With the other ships there is retro fitting going on to make this also possible, at least to a certain extent, but the Koningsdam is the first HAL ship with the full concept.

These are a few of the several hundred boxes with crockery which are now unpacked and put to use.

It is now the plan for the complete crew to fully live and work on board, after the 17^th of March and this means the Hotel Department is ratching up the output of food and cabin services. By that last date all the offices should be finished so all the departments will be on board instead of in the yard offices. At the same time the crew training is in full swing. There is a second Hotel director on board who coordinates all the training to get over a 1000 crew ready for work. Safety first of course but then also all the work routines have to be rehearsed.

The Function Rooms on Main Deck have been completed. There are 3 but two of them can be split up.

Today the rest of the Entertainment Department joined the ship and now also the tests and rehearsals in the show lounge have started. Most of this takes place late in the evening when things are a bit quieter and not all the yard people “volunteer to become an impromptu audience”. The Cruise Director is now giving a daily announcement with what is going in. A most important fact, on Monday the self-service laundries for the crew will become operational. Good thing; as I am running out of clean socks etc.

Today all the ceiling lights in the main dining room were clearly visible.

Tomorrow is another quiet day and according to one yard supervisor a lot of extra protection will be installed in the delivered area’s and stay there until the final delivery of each area and the eventual handover of the ship.

The dry weather is holding and thus the yard is in full swing with what has to be painted or has to repainted. We normally wear hard hats in the shipyard to avoid being hit by “foreign objects descending from a greater height” but today the hat is handy to catch paint drips.  We also had our first introductory training in operating the lifeboat davits and lowering a lifeboat. As the technique keeps developing our lifeboat systems change with each class of ship we build and thus we have to be re-trained as well.

Not much Officer glamour & spivvy uniforms to see but here we have the deck officers gathered for Lifeboat Instruction.

Apart from painting outside, there is painting going on inside as well, with a lot of touch up in progress. Most of the inside of the ship was spray painted when the ship was only a steel hull and without most of the machinery installed. With those machines being installed and with over 2000 yard people milling around it is not all as pristine as it was in the beginning.  Thus suddenly corridors are blocked with plastic and a message in Italian exhorting everybody not to go through. Occasionally one of the shipyard firemen realizes this too late and his/her once fine red helmet has suddenly taken on another color. Another good reason to wear a helmet. First stick the helmet through a door before anything else.

This is the Grand Staircase between the Ocean Bar and the Casino.

More and more protective covering is disappearing and rooms are ready for the final installation of equipment and furniture. Today the Casino, Photo gallery, Ocean Bar and Queens Lounge took another big jump.  The Ocean Bar is getting its furniture installed and the photo shop is nearly finished. It is only missing all the paraphernalia the photographers install themselves. On this ship they have a dedicated Black Label studio an improvement on the “tents” on the older ships where it was a retro fit. The B & W studio remains the most popular part of all photography on board and hence a dedicated studio.

The Photo Gallery. Only the protective covering still needs to be removed.

For most of the public rooms it is now waiting for the final furnishings to arrive. Most of it is already in the shipyard but will only be brought on board once it is safe to install. And as most of this installing is plug_and_play, it will not take much time.

The Koningsdam is the first HAL ship with a bridge – cockpit – design. 2 Navigators in the front and Captain and Staff Captain on the 2nd row. The chair to right is for a pilot, if needed.

The bridge is now being completed as well. It has been operational since the Trial trips in January but then most of the safety systems for the ship were jerry rigged. Now the official panels and monitors are being installed. This is done by an Italian company called Martec who are now trying to get their software to speak to the various hardware in the ship. Last night they were testing the closing of the Fire screen Doors from the bridge and although announcements were made, it caught the occasional Italian un-aware and the person in question let the whole wide world very loudly know that he was not amused. Learned another few words which were not in my Italian Dictionary. With the complexity of the safety systems increasing there is now a complete separate Safety Centre behind the bridge. E.G. completely separated from the Navigation Bridge. In case the Captain needs to overview an emergency and oversee navigation at the same time, he will have to stand with one foot in the safety center and one in the wheelhouse. But it is better that way as it will not disturb the concentration of the navigators.

Most of the art still has to be installed but the flatter art work has already been put on the bulkheads in the corridors. The Koningsdam has a musical theme and some of the decks are named after famous composers. We have Beethoven, Gershwin, Mozart and Schubert and the corridor art reflects this. On navigation deck the art is related (surprise) to navigation and the captain will eventually see a man high Lighthouse painting when he walks from his cabin into the Guest staircase.  I do not know who pulls the protective covering off and I also do not know who puts it back on but when walking around you get different glimpses everyday  of what is mostly still hidden behind carton and wall paper.

What is also Art: but on a Grand Scale is the company’s logo on the funnel. The Koningsdam is the first ship that has switched from the old to the new.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another dry day, so the painting will mostly continue full speed as well. I had better keep my helmet on for another few days.

Thus today the migration took place of all the officers and crew who were scattered throughout Mestre (the town next to the shipyard in Marghera) to the ship. We were blessed to today with sunny but chilly weather, in other words a perfect day to move suitcases up and down gangways and stairs. The lifts are working but they are constantly full of all sorts of shipyard people and thus it is much easier to go 4 decks up the stairs. We are all scattered over the ship; some are on A deck and some like me are on deck 4. We have been put everywhere where cabins are already completed and accepted. At least that is the objective as one of the crew came back with the magic words “cabin still under construction”.  But there are plenty of cabins so he got another number and there he went again.  This time the bed had been installed and he was in business.

Crew starts to help out with cleaning up. It releases shipyard people for other areas. This is the Ocean Bar area.

The whole boarding process is organized by the ships officers. We already have the purser in the yard and the crew officer and the GRM, the three most important people to set new boarding crew safely on their way.  The plan is to have between a 100 and 140 crew joining every day and if this works out then we should be up to speed by Sunday. That will then give us about three weeks to get everybody molded into a smooth operating team.  As mentioned before, the most experienced crew is being transferred from the various ships and thus the actual work will just be a matter of finding the right routine. More work will be needed in the safety training of the crew as the Koningsdam has a different mustering system and everybody will have to get used to that.

Vegetable Cold Room. For the time being one corner will suffice for serving the crew.

In the meantime a lot of finishing touches are being made on the lower decks. The cleaning ladies and the painters have moved in and miles and miles of temporary cabling is being removed. With 2500 guests and over a 1000 crew coming storing is in full swing but it will take a while before the store rooms are filled. One 40 foot container full of provisions does not make much of an impression. Some is done by the yard but more and more crew is being assigned to help speed things up. Ever thought about how much time it takes to get over 3000 matrasses on board? They are all the special Sealy matrasses that HAL uses and it takes sometimes more than 2 people to handle one of those things. They sleep heavenly but they are heavy to handle.

Store room Alleyway. It almost looks like a ship already as most shipyard material has been removed.

The ship is running on its own power and light, electricity, hot and cold water as everything is now produced on board.  I have been parked in an outside cabin (with balcony) and everything is working perfectly. Currently they have started with tuning in the televisions and as these are fully interactive they all have to be programmed / software uploaded one by one.  The A/V boys will not be lacking work in the coming days.  A nice touch is that we have usb ports on the sides of the bed so you can charge your cellphone while using it as your alarm clock during the night.  The vanity desk has 5 electric plugs, 2 European, 3 American and another usb port which should be able to take care of all connectivity needs. One task each crewmember has been given is to completely check each cabin and push each button to see if everything work. For this they have a form to be handed in as soon as all checks are complete. Everything in my cabin works; it just needs more dust removal / cleaning. That will be done by our own cabins stewards once they can get at all the cabins.

Painting the piping is always the final touch when work has finished. This area in the Engine Room we call the Pipe Tunnel (for good reason) and connects  the Fwd part of the ER with the Aft part by leading in between the Potable Water Tanks.

What is an annoying part of a new building is the constant alarm testing. Each cabin, each speaker, each smoke detector, etc.etc. has to be tested individually before a certificate of completion can be issued. As a result we are now listening to a constant cycle of 7 short and 1 long beep on the alarm system with in between (coffee and lunch time) Ramazotti (Italian pop singer) and Michael Jackson (who seems to be world famous here in the shipyard as I have not heard anything else in English yet) Luckily the Captain has decreed that by 7 pm. it should stop so people can go to bed on time as the yard is getting back in action every morning around 05.00 hrs.

A constant flow of Matrasses, until over 3000 will have been brought on board.

The weather is supposed to hold over the coming days which will be good for the boarding crew. By the weekend we should be in full swing. More and more crew coming on board, and less and less yard people on board when the various projects are completed one by one.

With the cruise industry being so popular and there only being three major shipbuilders (with several subsidiaries) at the moment, shipyards are churning cruise ships out as if they are building cars. This means there is the advantage of cost reduction through standardization but also the challenge of still delivering a ship which can be identified with the company that ordered it and is hopefully still unique among all the other ships coming out around the same time.  Holland America with its new building program is of course right in the middle of it.

The standardization part is taken care of by Carnival Corporation. They have a large office in each Fincantieri shipyard and these people ensure every ship is built to not only the same legal standards but also the same company – corporation- standards. Where possible the same equipment and material is used. Thus a bow thruster in a Carnival ship will be the same as a bow thruster in a Holland America ship. This does not have any influence on the guest experience and thus it does not need to be brand specific. The same goes for a myriad of other things. For the ships interior and the operational side things differ and then the company’s needs are built into the specification. Interiors are unique and it is up to each company to use a preferred designer. The actual installation work is carried out by sub – contractors and they can be arranged by the yard/carnival office but they can also be company preferred.   We have now contractors at work, who both work on the Koningsdam and on the Seabourn Encore which is docked behind us.

The Queens lounge as seen from Balcony level. It still looks a mess but it only needs the protective covers to be taken away.

The big puzzle is now for the shipyard, for Carnival office and for the Hal people at the yard is how to get all the work done in the right sequence. As long as only the hull is being constructed, it is not as complicated but as soon as the fitting out starts it does get complicated. A simple thing as installing a door will involve several different companies.

A. somebody builds the frame work: B. somebody delivers the door: C. somebody installs the door: D. somebody installs the door lock: E. somebody installs the safety notice on the inside of the door.  F. somebody installs the door number, and during the whole process there are several somebodies who are constantly checking is it is being done and if it is being done according to specifications and without damage. ……………. And that is only something as simple as a door.

What is almost finished is the Jewelery shop. It still needs some cleaning and the inventory and we are ready for business.

This all results in constant meetings and questions (everybody on their cell phones!!!) in order to streamline the work as much as possible and to avoid parties being in each other’s way. It is not unknown for one contractor to barge over or through a freshly painted area or new installed tiling belonging to another contractor. All the officers and staff assigned to the new building are in between this all, as in the end they have to check if everything is really “their ship” and if it works and if they can work with it.

What is complete and ready, pending the storing of the inventory, is the Ships Infirmary.

As a result of all these conflicting interests and requirements some areas are further towards completion than others. In the end it will all come together but at the moment it is not yet visible. Then there are some area’s which look incomplete but what is only missing is the lighting, the props and the furniture.

Getting things together is taking on an even greater urgency as tomorrow we are supposed to go on board and start living on the ship. March 10 is stipulated in the contract and the yard wishes to stick to the contract. Cancelling at the last minute is really not an option as the leases for the apartments expire and for the hotels arrangements end and all the new crew coming to the ship will then go directly on onboard.

So tomorrow is the big day when the ship goes from a building site to being a passenger ship, although the passengers are for the moment officers and crew. The weather gods seem to favor us as tomorrow is predicted to be a sunny day with temperatures around 14oC / 58oF.

One always connects Venice with sunshine and gondola’s lazily moving through the canals as a perfect example of Italian “La Dolce Vita”. Well, today it did not look like it at all. It was miserable and grey with a constant drizzle coming down when I arrived at the shipyard. Not really a place you associate with cruise ships. But then Venice has a very large industrial hinterland which we do not think off as we say Venice. But the shipyard is located in Marghera and this one of those areas considered to be part of greater Venice.

Some decks are nearly finished, apart from the art/decoration in the corridors. Hence it being possible for the officers and crew to live on board by the end of this week.

As there are only 3 days to go before the crew is going on board, I have been parked in a hotel in the nearby town of Mestre. Not an exciting place either but there is a big shopping Centre just across the road which makes the crew very happy.  For a few days now the first regular crew are arriving and they are staying in  various hotels in the area including mine. The officers who are part of the new building team have been here since last September, or even before, and they live in apartments in the area around Marghera. Marghera is the actual name of the town where the shipyard is located which is just south of Venice. Hence you always see the ships going through Venice itself when leaving the shipyard. It is at the moment the only way out although the local authorities are thinking about a canal which will provide a direct connection with the sea and which will then alleviate the need of having very large ships sailing through the old city. Not so nice for the cruise ship guests but much better for the islands of Venice as the ships wash  can affect /erode the swampy land upon which the whole of Venice has been built.

The two story high Lido deck. Fairly quiet as far as work is concerned as they were busy with laying the deck covering.

But leaving is still more than three weeks away and this morning Captain Emiel de Vries, Master designate for the Koningsdam, picked me up from the hotel and plunged me directly into the “controlled mayhem” of an Italian shipyard.  I have worked in French and German shipyards so I know what hectic is but here this is taken  to a new level.  The closer a ship comes to completion, the more people are milling around to finish everything off and I have never seen more workers per square yard as I saw this morning.  One always observes in a shipyard more chiefs than Indians (or at least a number of people acting as chiefs) but with the arrival of the Cell-phone this seems to have been taken to a whole new level.  Everybody is working hard; everybody is on the phone at the same time which then results in directing everybody else who happens not to be on the phone at that same moment.  I just wonder if everything would come to a grinding halt if the cell phone network would stop all of a sudden.  Better not, as the ship has to sail on April the 4^th.

There are things in life which a simple sailor will never understand. But these balloons have something to do with the eventual installing of the art on this pedestal.

My immediate task in the coming days is to study & learn the ship in detail and create search plans for the ship. These are plans which the Master assists in being able to arrange a fast, comprehensive and in depth search of the ship in case it is needed. Guests missing, property lost on board, stowaway reports etc. etc. These plans are normally made by a very experienced person who understands how a HAL ship operates, how all the sub departments and fiefdoms work; and who can figure out of who is exactly in charge of a particular locker, space or corridor. So while I am doing my familiarization of the ship, I might as well create a checklist at the same time and do it all from the perspective of the Captain. It will take a fair bit of walking around as the Pinnacle Class (Koningsdam & TBA-dam) is considerably different than previous Signature class. More about this in the coming days.

The show room at sea is nearly finished and the testing of the 270o digital background is in full swing.

With the arrival of the first crew there is now manpower to start storing the ship. All the cold rooms are filled up and other store room areas are slowly being taken into use as well. The company has a large warehouse where everything is received and from there distributed to the ship. Except for perishables; they go directly from the delivery van to the cold rooms. After the weekend more and more of that will happen as with sufficient crew available, more and more can be received directly on board.  I just hope for the local weather to improve.

We are not the only ship that creates a lot of fuss and Italian excitement as behind us lays the Seabourn Encore which recently was floated out from dry dock.  For this ship the finishing off is now starting as well and two ships nearing their finishing stages do create for a lively atmosphere.

Weather for tomorrow: Rain and overcast in the morning and then clearing in the afternoon and then Thursday should be a sunny day.

The nice weather held and we arrived this morning with sunny skies and a cool breeze blowing from the North East. A bit of a cool wind is not bad at all for Half Moon Cay as it makes it less warm later in the day and this indeed happened. Nice sunny weather with bearable temperatures while on the beach. My class had been up and about for a while already as they were involved in the General Closure procedure for all the Fire Screen Doors.  The Nieuw Amsterdam is divided in seven safety sections called Main Fire Zones or Main Vertical Zones and these are separated from each other by Fire Resistant bulkheads. There are a lot of holes in these bulkheads as everybody must be able to walk through the ship. In case of fire when we want to isolate the section on fire we close the Fire Screen Doors which will then plug those holes. 

Holes as in corridors; as in the big open spaces of the public rooms; as in access to store rooms; AC Stations, Engine Spaces, etc. etc. The law requires the testing of these doors on a regular basis. Closing and opening locally, closing one by one from the bridge, closing by vertical section from the bridge and closing them all at the same time. The latter is called a General Closure. The challenge is when to do this because A. most of the time there are guests and crew walking around creating a chance of an accident and B. if guests or crew keep going through you cannot see from the bridge if the door is really closed. The indicator will not stay on green = safe = closed.  Through the years we have figured out that the best time is around 05.00 in the morning. The late night revelers have gone to bed, and the early morning risers have not risen yet.

All the doors in the process of closing. Done from the bridge and now going from Red to Green. Over the top of the console tracing paper has been placed so the Safety Officer can mark those doors which might need attention

Still we have officers and crew everywhere to monitor the situation and six extra hands for this evolution is always much appreciated. Hence at 05.00 we were all in position when the switch was flipped and the doors closed. With so many Fire screen doors there is always one that will need re-adjusting or for which the controlling light on the bridge has flunked out.  This is then corrected the same morning by the Safety Officer and his staff.

The Half Moon Clipper approaching with the Zuiderdam in the background.

I mentioned in an earlier blog that all the material for the days stay comes from the ship(s) and nearly all the service staff as well. For that purpose the Half Moon Clipper comes alongside to collect all the food and drink needed on the island. As soon as the ship is on location the tender service starts while at the same time the Half Moon Clipper is loaded. Everything goes to the island where small trucks are waiting to bring it to the various venues. When the day is done the left overs are returned to the ship(s).

How about this? A whole pallet of Hamburger buns going ashore.

Our Culinary Staff are very skillful in calculating how much will be used during the day, so very little comes back.  They know exactly how much our guests eat (a lot) and what they like (steak, burgers, fish and freshly cooked vegetables). What is harder to predict is the amount of beverages being consumed as that depends on a lot of factors. Thus we see quite a few bottles returning. According to one Steward there was today a low interest in various Rums but a high interest in Light Beers. Next week might be different.

All the luggage crates have been loaded by means of the crane from the Half Moon Clipper and ready to depart.

Today also my class came to an end. For 14 days I tried my best to transfer as much information and experience as possible. Some of the routines and topics might have looked be a bit mundane but later on they will realize that safe working comes with knowledge of routines and doing it and then it will all make sense. They will now return home and then wait for their first assignment.

Holland America: Here We Come.

I will fly home as well to turn myself around and get ready for the other part of my job the On Board Team Support Officer.  Then on Monday 7 march I will fly to Italy to join the Koningsdam. Thus for a few days my blogging will stop and then I hope to dispense some interesting facts about how a new and empty ship is being manned and is getting ready (I think the Navy uses the word “worked up’) for service. We have about three weeks to get all the crew singing the same tune before the first cruise starts. A lot of crew come from the other ships and that means we have to mold S-Class, R-Class, Vista Class and Signature Class routines and service into a new Pinnacle Class operation.

Tomorrow morning we will be docked in Ft. Lauderdale around 07.30 am. and we will have the same busy day as usual.  I will be “on the blog” again in seven days.

This is cruising at its best. It is not too warm outside, courtesy of a cool north Atlantic breeze. The sun is shining and it is a following wind and thus the relative wind on deck is nothing more than a gentle breeze. I wish we could have this during every sea day. Yesterday on departure we saw flying fish around the ship, (and quite a few of them directly eaten by Black Starlings) and today the flying fish were there again but no Birds. It seems birds do not enjoy hanging around a ship with a following wind. Maybe it is too hard to fly or maneuver in the air if the wind comes from behind.

Half Moon Cay surrounded by other Bahamian Islands.

We are on the regular route in the North Atlantic Ocean and around 1700 hrs. today we were passing the Turks & Caicos Islands again. Now we will stay in open waters until early in the morning tomorrow when we sail between the various Bahama Islands and approach Half Moon Cay from the South. The  best known island in this region is San Salvador Island which is located just east of Half Moon Cay (which itself is part of Little San Salvador Island) It is one of the larger Bahamian Islands but away from the beaten track and not so easy to get to. Very famous for scuba diving due to the proximity of nice reefs and those same reefs also make it difficult for larger ships to go there.

If there was an easy way to get larger ships to the island, no doubt we would have built a pier there in the same way as on Grand Turk Island. Apart from the excellent beaches it also has the Columbus Monument. The island lays claim to fame due to the fact that Columbus discovered the New World here in 1492. If this is true I do not know because several other islands claim the same thing. For a cruise ship always a nice attraction to provide the guests with. But maybe not a place for Holland America to be as one of our previous Captains, Commodore Verhoog made a whole study about this in the 1950’s and came to the conclusion that due to the prevailing current Columbus must have landed somewhere else. And we have to believe our Captains of course so Holland America could possibly  not call somewhere where it was proven by one of its own Masters that it is the wrong island. The island has several little harbors and marinas but nearly the whole island is surrounded by an extended reef and that means a long tender service and a ship which is not sheltered by the island itself. Not good for a safe tender operation and Guest Satisfaction.

Two teams on deck, the forward one has the fire /water hose, the 2nd one the fire/foam hose.

None of the crew was bothered by all of this, as it was Fire drill time. Once a week the ship conducts, in accordance with Solas regulations, a First Emergency Response Drill. We always try to keep changing the scenario’s around to keep the interest and focus of our crew going. If you extinguish the same trash can every week then boredom tends to set in quite quickly. So today we practiced a Helicopter crash on deck. With the objectives: A. to save & protect the ship B. if possible save the people inside the helicopter.  I have been told that the new helicopters coming into service are less flammable and have better safety protection features than the ones before and thus we stand a better chance to help the occupants if something like this would happen. Thus far the helicopter pilots out there and the cruise industry have a 100% safety record and that is something to be proud about, but still we train and exercise.

Once the injured person is safely removed they are handed over to the stretcher team for transport. Here we see the team made up of Housekeeping Attendants with a Medical Officer putting our “victim” on the stretcher.

Thus we simulated a crash on the forward deck and exercised the correct approach with the objective to remove a “victim” / injured person. For that we use two teams; one with a hose with sea water and one with a hose with foam (against fuel spills). One team tries to maneuver itself in such a position that the victim can be safely removed while the 2^nd hose protects the team busy with that extraction. In the meantime there is another team a deck above who lets it “rain” foam over the crashed helicopter and a team below in case fire goes through the deck below. When the whole exercise was over there was a debriefing for lessons learned, followed by a short training to explain the whole sequence and what each and every team does, as often everybody only sees a small part of the whole evolution.

Tomorrow we will be in Half Moon Cay where we will be together with the Zuiderdam. For my school class it will be an early morning as at 05.00 hrs. the ship will conduct a General Closure of all the Fire Screen Doors in the ship. More about that tomorrow.