Posted on 11/01/2009 4:34:00 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
The world's largest cruise ship cleared a crucial obstacle Sunday, lowering its smokestacks to squeeze under a bridge in Denmark. The Oasis of the Seas — which rises about 20 stories high — passed below the Great Belt Fixed Link with a slim margin as it left the Baltic Sea on its maiden voyage to Florida.
Bridge operators said that even after lowering its telescopic smokestacks the giant ship had less than a 2-foot (half-meter) gap. Hundreds of people gathered on beaches at both ends of the bridge, waiting for hours to watch the brightly lit behemoth sail by shortly after midnight.
Company officials are banking that its novelty will help guarantee its success. Five times larger than the Titanic, the $1.5 billion ship has seven neighborhoods, an ice rink, a small golf course and a 750-seat outdoor amphitheater. It has 2,700 cabins and can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew members.
Accommodations include loft cabins, with floor-to-ceiling windows, and 1,600-square-foot (487-meter) luxury suites with balconies overlooking the sea or promenades. The liner also has four swimming pools, volleyball and basketball courts, and a youth zone with theme parks and nurseries for children.
Oasis of the Sea, nearly 40 percent larger than the industry's next-biggest ship, was conceived years before the economic downturn caused desperate cruise lines to slash prices to fill vacant berths.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
telescopic smokestacks
wow. just wow.
Fugly boat.
“the $1.5 billion ship has seven neighborhoods”
1st Class.......................................Steerage.
What a top heavy scow. She will never take heavy seas.
Giant floating terrorist target.
“Five times larger than the Titanic,”...
Finland built it and Royal Caribbean is operating it. They're a U.S. owned company.
Sounds like something in a Road Runner cartoon, a ship squeezing under a bridge.
Through World War II U.S. Navy ships had to fit through the Panama Canal and under the Brooklyn Bridge. Even when it was first built, a lot of tall ships had to strike their topworks to fit under the Brooklyn Bridge whose center span clearance is 135 feet.
No thanks!
The engineering involved in this project is beyond belief. I’m sure it is bigger than the possible waves/wind she should see.
It’s still no place I’d want to be in a hurricane. But then, what ship or boat would you want to be o for a hurricane?
A nuclear sub, perhaps.
God bless ‘em if they can keep it filled and keep it safe, but it looks like some Royal Caribbean exec was reading his New Yorker, came across a Bruce McCall cartoon of an absurdly huge and well-appointed luxury liner, and the bulb went on: “What if we actually built one of those beasts?”
Next to the bridge where the fish house was located was a railroad bridge. The slowed about a hundred yards short of the RR bridge. They had apparently called for them to open the railroad bridge but a train was coming and the RR bridge remained closed.
As they got closer all of a sudden one took off and made it under the bridge. The other, slightly bigger tug, pushed the throttles wide open and at full speed, of course, the bow raised out of the water. About twenty feet in front of the RR bridge they cut her throttles and bow dipped just in time to make it under the bridge.
No raising the bridge. No water for ballast. Just incredible timing.
Interesting that you should say that.
A large sailing vessel built by the Swedes in the 18th century capsized in harbor shortly after being built. Too top heavy.
If it were mine, id float it out in the middle of the ocean and declare it it’s own country.
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