Meyer Turku Building another Ship for TUI Cruises
Meyer Turku Oy celebrated the start of production of cruise ship Mein Schiff 5 on November 18, 2014, as the cutting machine was started by Mike Schwanke, Marketing Director of TUI Cruises at a ceremony witnessed by members of Meyer Turku, TUI Cruises and DNV GL.
Mein Schiff 5 is the third Mein Schiff class cruise ship being built at Turku Shipyard. For the customer, TUI Cruises, this ship will be the fifth member of their well-being fleet. Mein Schiff 3 was delivered from Turku in May 2014 and Mein Schiff 4, which was floated out approximately five weeks ago, will be delivered to TUI Cruises in spring 2015. The start of production of Mein Schiff 6 will take place about a year from now.
“The team at Meyer Turku is very pleased and excited to start the production of Mein Schiff 5. Together with our workers, Finnish maritime network and our client TUI Cruises we are looking positively into the future,” said Jan Meyer, CEO of Meyer Turku Oy.
Wybcke Meyer, CEO of TUI Cruises, said, “We have set ourselves ambitious goals for the next few years, with plans to expand our cruise fleet between now and 2017 from three ships today to six, with 14,000 beds in total.”
The 99,500-GT cruise ships, at approximately 294 meters long and some 36 meters wide, have approximately 1,250 cabins (2,500 lower beds) and a crew of 1,000. Each vessel in the series of ships brings approximately 5,000 person-years of labor to Meyer Turku shipyard and a significant amount of labor for the Finnish maritime industry network as well, the builder said, adding that the domestic content of these ships is approximately 80%.