Oasis of the Seas

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The largest cruise ship in the world right now is the Oasis of the Seas. This modern passenger vessel is able to carry around 6,000 (six thousand) people. This capacity is really high compared to other cruise ships that have been built so far. So, the ship definitely needs a lot of safety equipment such as lifeboats, life jackets and fire fighting equipment on board. From Wikipedia, I read that the cruise ship belongs to the Royal Caribbean International, a cruise line company whose headquarter is in Miami Florida. When I first saw the Oasis of the Seas pictures I was really amazed by the beauty and grandeur of the vessel. It must have been designed by a lot of experienced naval architects and marine engineers.

Material Choice in Cruise Ship's Interior

Cruise ship is an expensive investment. The owner and the builder of the ship must make sure that it will remain safe during her 25 to 30 years operation and can bring big profit to the company. If we look at the photos of the interior of the vessel, we can easily conclude that this is a very luxurious floating structure ever built by human being. Everything might look the same as a modern or classic 5 star hotel on land. The bedroom, the curtains and the carpet may look similar to what we see in hotels but ship designers must have chosen fire resistant materials when designing and building this cruise ship. All the cables also must meet technical requirement for marine use. The lamps of the ship have filaments that are thicker than the conventional lamps on land to withstand constant vibrations and wave shocks at sea. So, if you have never tried traveling with this ship, why don't you open its official website and book for a ticket to the Caribbean island now?

Port of Calls

As a luxurious floating hotel, Oasis of the Seas travels around the Carribean islands. Her port of calls are Fort Lauderdale Florida - a tropical harbor in the United States, Falmouth Jamaica, Cozumel Mexico, Charlotte Amalie of St. Thomas, Labadee Haiti, Nassau in the Bahamas, and Philipsburg in St. Maarten. Port Everglades of Florida is her home port.

Activities during a cruising tour

When a tourist or passenger take a tour onboard a cruise ship, he or she will experience various activities to do both onboard the ship and onshore. Dolphins watching is one of the most favorite scenes that tourists may enjoy while the ship is in the middle of the sea. A large cruise ship like Oasis of the Seas provides rock climbing and surf simulator to her passengers.

Displacement and Rolling Period

Built in Turku Finland, Oasis of the Seas displacement is approximately 100,000 tons. Displacement is the amount of water that is displaced when the ship is placed onto the sea water. The volume of the displaced water if multiplied by the specific weight of the sea water - usually 1,025 ton/ cubic meter will become the weight of the cruise ship itself. Naval Architects usually use Simpson's formula to calculate the volume of the ship. First they will calculate the waterplane areas for different draft to summer load waterline and then integrate them using Simpson's rule too to obtain the underwater volume of the ship. From these calculations other hydrostatic data such as the metacentric height of the ship, the moment of inertia of the waterplanes and the center of buoyancy of the cruise ship can be obtained. Now ship designers rely on such software as Maxsurf and Delftship to define the hull form of the ship and the stability calculations for various service and flooded conditions. The width of the ship is 47 meters. This wide hull form can significantly increase the metacentric height of the cruise ship. But the ship that is too stable with small draft will make the rolling too fast. Unfortunately I have never traveled with this luxurious vessel that's why I cannot talk any further whether the rolling period of this cruise ship is between 7 and 8 seconds or not. I try to watch Oasis of the Seas Video that describes about its rolling period but I could only find her flooding experiment carried out in a towing tank. Perhaps I should by a ticket of this ship for a cruise trip around the Caribbean island or trans-Atlantic crossing so that I may really feel her rolling.

Propulsion and Propeller

Most cruise ships nowadays are powered by diesel engine and marine screw propeller. In the past, cruise ships and passenger ships had steam turbines installed in the engine room. The steam engine has lower vibration which is good for the ships but also has lower efficiency. With improvement in damping technology, the diesel engines that are now installed in ships have lower vibration. Diesel engines are more efficient than steam turbines. There are six marine diesel engines operating inside the hull of the ships supplying 97,020 kilowatts electrical power that will be used for lighting, telecommunication, air conditioning, water-treatment plant and propulsion. It's interesting to see that this cruise ship does not follow conventional ships that use controllable pitch propeller and long shaft to transfer power from the main engines to the propeller. Instead, it uses 3 Azipods propellers that are powered by electricity. With the ability to turn 360 degrees, this passenger ships will not face any difficulties when having to maneuver in restricted waters.

by charles roring