Sun Cruises News

Sweden-based company, Consilium Navigation AB has recently acquired BSH (Bundesamt fur Seeschiffahrt und Hydrographie) type approval for their voyage data recorder system, VDR M2. Consilium Navigation AB is the first company to acquire Type Approval with BSH, and is also one of the first companies offering type-approved Voyage Data Recorders, establishing its leading role within VDRs New orders have also been received lately, including VDR deliveries to China National Offshore Shipping Company, NITC, Sun Cruises and Euroceanica.

In a story reported by CNN, Britain's biggest solar-powered boat debuted Tuesday on a lake in London's Hyde Park. The Serpentine SolarShuttle -- powered entirely by the sun -- cruises at 5 miles per hour and carries 42 passengers. Almost no pollutants are given off during the trip because the shuttle has two silent engines -- meaning there are no carbon emissions and it is also charged fully by the sun. It is expected the boat will save nearly 5,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide per year, compared with a diesel boat of a similar size, according to Gavin Gomes, a spokesman for Sputnik Communications, a London-based energy company. When the ferry is idle, surplus electricity generated by the solar panels will be fed back into the national transmission network.

Sun Cruises’ 22,945grt cruise liner, Sundream, has left A&P Southampton’s King George V Dry Dock after completion of a three-week dry dock and repair program. The 1,257 passenger, 1970-built vessel is a regular visitor to the port of Southampton and Harwich, but was its first visit to A&P. In addition to the usual general repairs, the program focused on extensive steel renewals to the vessel’s ballast and fuel tanks, upgrade and renewal of the sanitary pipe work systems, as well as the removal and overhaul of both stabilisers, and assistance with the partial installation of a new sprinkler system. David Parry, managing director of A&P Southampton Ltd is delighted with the outcome of the project. “Pre-docking planning was the key to our success on the Sundream.

Manpower Software plc (MSW) today announces the award of two contracts for the sale of its Maritime Crew Administration product to Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited (RCCL) and Sun Cruises Limited (SCL), the subsidiary of Airtours plc. These contract awards follow on from the recent sales of MSW's Crew Task Scheduling product to RCCL and the Access Control product, "Souls on Board," to SCL. MSW was also granted two contracts for the sale of its Workforce Planning product to Guinness UDV Limited (part of the Diageo group of companies) and BP Shipping Limited (a division of BP plc). The initial value of the four contracts is in excess of $2.2 million. RCCL has purchased MSW's Maritime Crew Administration product as part of an enterprise-wide program of improvement.

Star Cruises Plc has bought the remaining two ships of Airtours' Sun Cruises unit as well as the rights to the Sun Cruises name. The Sun Viva I and Sun Viva II will be renamed MegaStar Sagittarius and MegaStar Capricorn respectively, Star said. It gave no financial details. Star said that following its joint acquisition with U.S. cruise firm Carnival Corp last month of Norway's NCL Holdings for $1.1 billion, it has a fleet of 18 ships and over 21,000 lower berths. By 2004, with the five ships currently on order, Star/NCL will have 23 vessels with about 34,000 lower berths.

Airtours said its Carousel Nassau cruise liner, damaged after hitting rocks while leaving the port of Calica, near Cancun, Mexico, was making its own way to a dry dock in Mobile, Ala. for damage assessment. The vessel was leaving port on Sunday at 0200 local time, on the first day of its cruise, under the control of a local pilot, when a gust of wind caused it to strike rocks, damaging one of its propellers and puncturing a fuel oil tank, the spokesman said. He said no more than seven tons of oil were spilled, the crew contained most of the spill within a boom, and dispersed the oil with a mixture of chemicals and detergents. There have been no reports of pollution from the spill, he added. At the time of the incident there were 924 American, Canadian and British passengers on board.

A&P Group has won the contract to carry out repairs to the 22,945grt Cruise Liner Sundream at its Southampton dry dock facility. The ship, which is operated by Sun Cruises (part of the MyTravel Group), will arrive at A&P Southampton on 26th October for a scheduled 21 day dry dock and refit period. Work will include extensive tank repairs, blasting and painting of the hull and davits, shell door inspections, various steel and pipe work renewals, port tail shaft and stabiliser surveys as well as general machinery overhauls. The Sundream, which trades in the Mediterranean, Northern Europe and the Caribbean, is the first Sun Cruises liner to dry dock with the A&P Group.

As dot-com firms that lacked a solid foundation disappeared from the landscape, the strongest are left standing amid the rubble. It is worth noting that at the height of the 'dot-com' boom and phenomenal statistics from various research groups, Gartner Group predicted that 75 percent of e-business projects would fail because of a lack of understanding of technology and poor business planning. Of the companies predominately built on smaller amounts of capital from within the industry such as Oslo, Norway-based MarineProvider — from day one there was a vested interest in not only the day-day operations of the company via its investors, but there was a mission that MarineProvider had — which was to assist companies already within the maritime community.

Maritime authorities and insurers are reported to be at odds regarding the removal of the Sun Vista, the luxury cruise liner that caught fire and sank off the Malaysian last week. Apparently, Malaysian maritime leaders are demanding that Sun Cruises remove the sunken from the Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. Insurers claim the ship is outside Malaysia's jurisdiction -- in international waters --and poses no hazard.