From CNN -Celebrity Edge: Is this the future of cruise ships?
One billion dollar cruise ship being built in France.
Moving spine: One of the most unusual aspects of Celebrity Edge’s design is how the spine has been repositioned. “Ships have traditionally been built with what’s known as an exoskeleton, so the skeleton’s on the outside of the ship,” says Fain.
If that’s not enough of a puzzle the propeller is at the bow.
Judging from yard photographs, Celebrity Edge has two conventional pulling-type ABB Azipod propulsion units:
Here is what the article says:
The ship also has what’s called a parabolic ultrabow, another Celebrity Cruises innovation that, it’s claimed, will help make it more energy efficient – a pressing concern both financially and environmentally.
This builds on pre-existing “bulbous bow” designs by locating the ship’s propellers to the front of the vessel, reducing drag in the water.
“It still has a bulbous bow, it’s just included in this extra sheathing which allows the ship the energy efficiency. The propellers are forward not back, so there’s nothing to interrupt the water coming into the propeller,” explains Fain.
https://hideousjourneys.com/2017/12/22/celebrity-edge-construction-update/
Judging by the terms used in the CNN article, the author doesn’t know diddly about ships anyway. The “propeller at the bow” thing must be his misunderstanding of the purpose of bow thrusters.
Why do articles like that even exist, it’s not like it is so difficult to do a few minutes research?
I kind of like the idea of moving the load-bearing longitudinal bulkhead inwards to allow more flexibilty with arranging the cabins. I once played around with such an idea for an Arctic cruise ship: retain the balconies the passengers love, but glaze them over with a flexibly-mounted glass shell that keeps the heat in and yet gives nearly unlimited field of view to the surrounding landscape. As a byproduct, it would also turn the 1970s “block of flats” look of cruise ships into a “horizontal glazed skyscraper” with smooth exterior surface.
Should have patented that idea…
Sound like they are separating the two functions of a traditional hull, water-tightness and structural support.
Historically, the outer part of the deckhouse was supported by the shell and the balconies appeared to be “hanging” outside of it (no, I couldn’t find a better example photograph…), but in Celebrity Edge the bulkhead probably “standing” on the inner double hull which gives more space for verandas in transverse direction without extending too much outwards of maximum beam.
Actually, the same principle has previously been used in e.g. the Mein Schiff series currently under contruction for TUI at Meyer Turku, but Celebrity Edge has taken it further by implementing those new “infinite verandas”:
This doesn’t bother me. They way I look at it there are two different considerations, many (most?) articles have errors. The question is how serious is the error and how much weight does the source have.
In this case will anyone order and build a ship based on a CNN article? Not likely.
If it matters the source has to be looked at. I once wasted half a day working on a motorcycle because of an error in a Chilton’s manual. Next time I got deep into a repair job I purchased the shop manual first.
The other thing is how much we take at face value in articles about subjects we know nothing about.
