[HN Gopher] Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print ...
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Cruise ships chopped in half are a license to print money
Author : peutetre
Score : 281 points
Date : 2024-09-08 08:35 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (newatlas.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (newatlas.com)
| ggm wrote:
| The point is gluing a chunk of cruise ship in the middle to make
| it bigger. Not selling half a cruise ship to somebody twice. It's
| the stretch limo business model with norovirus.
| quibono wrote:
| I'm amazed that these welds can hold ship sections like that. I
| wonder if this is regulated in any way? E.g. class and quality of
| welds required etc.
|
| On another note, a 2 billion investment to build a ship seems
| absolutely crazy. How long does it take to make that kind of
| money back, and how long does a ship need to sail to pay itself
| back?
| NullPrefix wrote:
| A weld doesn't have to be weaker than the parent metal. I
| assume these people might inspect their welds before painting
| them over. Same process as when they make new ships
| newsclues wrote:
| It's the same way the ship is built to start with
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| How to build a ship:
|
| Step 1: cut a ship in half...
| doe_eyes wrote:
| For the most part, it doesn't matter how long it takes to pay
| this back. They borrow the money, pay installments, and still
| end up with a 10-15% profit per passenger from day one (and
| that's after deducting deprecation).
|
| But because they live on credit, they were pretty badly hosed
| during COVID-19.
| frognumber wrote:
| * Regulation is non-existent in the cruise industry. You shop
| for the venue with the most lax regulations of the [?]200
| countries in the world.
|
| * The equivalent is insurance. Insuring a $2B ship carries
| pretty good due diligence. A ship simply failing is rare. Of
| course, ship insurance doesn't care about employee rights, safe
| food, medical care, or other things one might expect to keep
| people safe. It's about protecting the capital expense. If
| everyone on the ship dies, but the ship survives, that's okay!
|
| * Welds are quite strong -- it just extends the metal. This is
| especially true when the baseline quality of the metal is not
| high.
|
| On something heat-treated SAE AISI 4130 steel (what e.g. fancy
| steel bicycles are made of), you see significant weakening.
| There is a heat-affected zone where the normal tempering is
| taken off, and the joining material isn't the fancy CrMo of the
| baseline material.
|
| I'm not a nautical engineer, but I doubt cruise ships are made
| of overly fancy steel. When you're making a 180,000 ton ship,
| your best bet is to use cheap steel, and if you need more
| strength, to simply use more of it. A good weld should be every
| bit as strong as the cheap steel around it, and the heat-
| affected zone is a lot less important if the steel isn't heat-
| treated or tempered in any way in the first place. It will
| harden the steel a bit, of course, but it shouldn't be the same
| level of impact.
|
| It's also worth noting you already have welds, and things need
| to be engineered for welds. It's not hard to reinforce the
| welds. Indeed, on a bike frame, the welds are where the
| stresses are highest, and you get around that by making the
| tubes a bit thicker (or, for fancier bikes, thicker just near
| the welds -- that's what a butted bike tube does).
|
| I think cruises are horrible, horrible things for a whole slew
| of reasons, but none having to do with the ship sinking
| Titanic-style.
| personjerry wrote:
| This comment was very useful and informative! Thank you.
| cm2187 wrote:
| And the original hull wasn't made of a single piece of steel
| in the first place, it is already a patchwork of steel plates
| welded together, isn't it? And I think it is assembled as
| vertical sections like the one being added.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| Yeah, exactly how a ship is built will differ, but
| generally you build up fairly large structural blocks, and
| then assemble (uh, a lot of welding) them together.
|
| Example time lapse of another cruise ship being built about
| a decade ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk_JIHel7To
|
| Depending on the ship, shipyard, and I imagine a host of
| other factors, you might assemble a ship directly out of
| the order of ~50-100 blocks, or you might pre-assemble into
| order of ~10 "mega-blocks" which then get assembled
| together.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Not exactly full sections, but very large sections. For
| example the crane in shipyard building the largest cruise
| ships can lift 1200 tonnes to 90 metres height...
| zikduruqe wrote:
| > SAE AISI 4130 steel (what e.g. fancy steel bicycles are
| made of)
|
| Wouldn't a fancy bicycle use Reynolds 853 steel? /s
| ajb wrote:
| Very informative, thanks.
|
| "none having to do with the ship sinking Titanic-style."
|
| It's rare, but not nonexistent. The Costa Concordia springs
| to mind. Schettino ended up with all the blame, but it did
| seem to be that there was some degree of institutional
| incompetence as well. But not with the construction AFAIK
| rhaps0dy wrote:
| The Costa Concordia ship was basically beached and turned.
| It did not sink, rather it collided with some rocks near
| the coast.
|
| This is very different from "sinking Titanic-style".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster
|
| EDIT: oh hm, maybe you're right; like the Titanic it
| collided with something and water began to pour in, unlike
| the Titanic it was close to shore so the whole ship did not
| sink.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| If nothing else there's the MS Estonia disaster[1].
| Structural failure due to a wave impact leading the car
| deck to flood and the ship to sink.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_MS_Estonia
| ReptileMan wrote:
| IIRC when watching documentary about the second to last gen
| nuclear submarines - engineers figured out that welds
| themselves were stronger than the steel plates themselves.
| msrenee wrote:
| >Welds are quite strong -- it just extends the metal. This is
| especially true when the baseline quality of the metal is not
| high.
|
| This is not the case at all. A weld almost always weakens the
| base material. And you don't just use whatever steel is the
| cheapest to build a ship. You use what is appropriate to the
| use case. There are cheaper and more expensive options within
| that category, but you make it sound like you can just grab
| whatever is cheapest in the yard that day.
|
| There's so much that goes into material selection and
| handling that this comment confidently hand waves away.
| pintxo wrote:
| Icon of the seas, back of the envelop calculation:
|
| Revenue: 52 weeks of sailing x 5.6k passengers [1] x 1.8k
| $/week [2] ~= 525m $/year
|
| Costs: Interest [3] 160m $/year + Crew [4] 118m $/year +
| Hospitality [6] 200m $/year = 478m $/year
|
| Profit ~= 47m $/year or ~9%
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cruise_ships
| [2] https://www.cruzely.com/heres-how-much-money-cruise-ships-
| ma... [3] 8% on 2b$ [4] Crew: 50k $/year * 2350 crew [5], just
| guessing the costs here, including all accomodation + living
| costs, probably still to high? [5]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icon_of_the_Seas [6] Hospitality:
| 100 $/guest/day? = 52 * 7 * 100 * 5.6k = 200m $/year
| ta1243 wrote:
| You've got to factor in deprecation. If the vessel cost $2b
| and lasts 20 years you need to repay $200m a year to repay
| the amount over 20 years.
|
| However I suspect 8% would be far higher that the rate they'd
| get.
|
| You'd also have to include maintenence costs, and also the
| reduction in revenue as it gets older (people will presumably
| not pay as much to travel on an older ship than a newer one),
| or the refurb costs you'll need to offset.
|
| On the other hand inflation has to be factored in. At 2% that
| debt will reduce 30% over the period.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I feel like it's just easier to use the existing cruise
| companies' public financials. It looks like 10% to 15% are
| the real world profit margins, but with quite a bit of
| volatility.
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/RCL/royal-
| caribbea...
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CCL/carnival/prof
| i...
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NCLH/norwegian-
| cru...
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| A cruise company is incentivised to say things like
| depreciation are less than they are, so the company's
| numbers look better than they actually are.
|
| Additionally, it's very rare for a company to own a ship
| for its entire lifetime.
|
| The way they calculate depreciation now is based on
| resale value.
|
| I wonder what happens to that in a world where interest
| rates AREN'T negative in real terms anymore...
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| How long does this supposed fraud take to show up?
| Carnival and Caribbean have been doing business for
| decades, and Norwegian has been public since 2011.
|
| Surely, it would have impacted the bottom line by now at
| at least one of those 3 businesses.
| tssva wrote:
| The CEO of Royal Caribbean has stated that the new large
| ships such as Icon are cash flow positive at 35% occupancy vs
| 50% occupancy for previous generations. The larger ships also
| have additional revenue generating experiences onboard so it
| is likely the average revenue per passenger is higher than
| the current industry average.
| WJW wrote:
| Don't forget it's not just the welds on the outside, but also
| the welds on all decks and walls on the inside. The resilience
| of modern vessels mainly comes from the internal structure
| rather than the hull. The hull is just the skin and needs to be
| strong enough to withstand the impact of water and tugboats etc
| but it's not responsible for holding the ship together.
| timrichard wrote:
| Tonight's on-board movie will be The Finest Hours....
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| Ha! I just read that book because of a different HN thread.
| It was excellent. As I read about this process, I thought of
| the same thing.
|
| For those not familiar, "The Finest Hours" by Michael J.
| Tougias and Casey Sherman recounts the 1952 rescue mission
| off Cape Cod. In a tragic coincidence, a storm split two
| different oil tankers in half. Both tankers split as a result
| of a construction process, at least superficially, similar to
| the one in TFA.
| brudgers wrote:
| _how long does a ship need to sail to pay itself back?_
|
| Some uninformed guessing:
|
| A operational net of $100/passenger/day is 10,000,000 passenger
| days per billion dollars. That's 27,000 passenger years.
|
| With an average load of 5000 passengers that's about five years
| per billion dollars.
|
| My guess is that average operational net is well above
| $100/passenger/day because cruising caters to luxury market
| segments; the scale is vast; people expect to be up sold; and
| gambling. All with little regulatory oversight.
| yuliyp wrote:
| I'd guess the average revenue per passenger to be on the order
| of $200 / day so for that 10k passenger ship that's about $700M
| of revenue per year. If they can put $200M of that toward the
| cost of the ship that'd pay for itself in a decade.
| whymauri wrote:
| They are regulated by regional professional boards with
| reciprocity. For example, the American Bureau of Shipping in
| North America. This concept is called a Classification Society
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_classification_society
|
| They are unlikely to skimp on this due to the insurance
| implications.
| protocolture wrote:
| I worked on a cruise ship below decks, once, for 3 hours, and I
| swore I would never take a cruise.
|
| Take the dirtiest hotel you have ever been in, and then ensure
| you cant leave it for days at a time.
|
| It interests me that demand is increasing but I suspect thats
| just good advertising.
| lbriner wrote:
| "Prices from $1,000" but shows the picture of the presedential
| suite to lure people in. "Oh yeah, $1,000 is a room next to the
| engine room with no window and a single bed" at which point
| people feel a bit embarrassed and accept that it is another
| $10K just to get a window.
|
| On the other hand, lots of people are returning customers so
| maybe there is something to be said for moving slowly across
| the ocean as your life ebbs away ;-)
| djtango wrote:
| I don't much like cruises but I do really enjoy being out at
| sea and would be more than happy to "raw dog" (in gen z
| parlance) some trips out at sea.
| jajko wrote:
| There are many ways to enjoy seas, cruise ships are by far
| the worst. As per people who worked on those, they are
| mostly for people who simply don't know how to enjoy life
| well but have money, are quiet alcoholics, and/or suffer
| massive loneliness.
|
| You can do amazing traveling experiences for less, you are
| in control of your own life and what happens next and you
| will feel like spending much more time when discovering
| world, culture, history and people compared to same white
| box with same things at same places.
|
| But its the same mentality of going to some properly
| amazing exotic place and then spending 2 weeks in luxury
| bubble of some 5 star resort. I don't complain - those
| folks leave interesting places and experiences for rest of
| us, but respecting that I cannot.
| scarab92 wrote:
| There's times I want to explore, and there's times I just
| want to do nothing.
|
| Cruises are good for when I want to do nothing for a
| while.
| nixass wrote:
| > Cruises are good for when I want to do nothing for a
| while.
|
| Weird way to spend not-insignificant money on but to each
| their own
| scarab92 wrote:
| I find I get somewhat anxious being at home and not doing
| anything, whereas it's just psychologically easier in the
| middle of the ocean.
|
| I'm happy to pay the cost to be in an environment that I
| can actually relax in.
| bosie wrote:
| Hear me out but maybe spend the cruise money for getting
| coaching from a psychologist/therapist to help you with
| feeling anxious at home? That doesn't sound like a great
| overall attitude, having stress responses at home and
| work related
| hebocon wrote:
| In a less serious way there is the possibility (and
| therefore a potential expectation) of being 'productive'
| when at home. Chores, errands, unfinished projects and
| all the other daily life that surrounds you.
|
| For me, any time off spent away from home has a different
| timbre of rejuvenation and I say that as someone who
| loves being at home.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Train rides across the country?
|
| Actually though, road trips scratch that itch for me as
| well. I don't plan them out except to say -- let's wander
| off to the Great Lakes or lets follow the Mississippi
| River south -- see all the river towns along the way.
| I've used AI to throw out ideas of things to see while on
| the road, or the wife and I fall back to looking for
| antique stores as an excuse to wander through the small
| downtowns of towns no one has heard of.
| criddell wrote:
| That's still doing something though. On a cruise ship you
| can wake up, walk out of your room and stop for breakfast
| on your way to the deck where you sit in a chair and
| watch the ocean for hours. It can be way more chill.
| __float wrote:
| Driving is very unpleasant for some. Trains in the US are
| not exactly luxurious by any stretch: compare the food on
| a nice cruise to the food available on a train.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| This was the biggest shock when seeing Europe, their
| trains are so much better. Considering how sprawling the
| continental US is, it's a shame we don't have more and
| better quality trains.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| It's because the US is so sprawling that trains lost out
| to planes there. Almost all of Europe is accessible in a
| day on a train. Only planes can do that in the US. So the
| US trains don't have their costs amortized over a large
| fraction of business travel as well as vacationers.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| High speed trains could still help connect a lot more
| hubs in the US. And more low speed trains and trolleys
| could reduce local traffic. IMO car culture took root,
| and we dove in head first with little thought to the long
| term consequences.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Almost all of Europe is accessible in a day on a train.
| Only planes can do that in the US.
|
| The US isn't that much larger, I don't think this
| argument holds. The geography and locations of population
| centres seem more of an issue.
| reaperman wrote:
| The EU is 1.5 million square miles of land area. The
| continental US is 3.1 million square miles of land area.
| Continental Europe incl. non-EU countries is over 4
| million square miles of land area.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| Based on what he said he's from the Midwest where driving
| across a state is a short trip. I assume they are in the
| Minnesota/Iowa/Wisconsin tri state area. 2 hours is
| normal to get to any bigger city.
| t0mas88 wrote:
| > Cruises are good for when I want to do nothing for a
| while.
|
| I've never been on a cruise, but for me renting a beach
| house does the same. Sleep, eat, watch the ocean from the
| beach and do totally nothing.
|
| Camping with friends also does it. Let all the kids play
| together, just sit and watch, doing nothing.
|
| When I was a bit younger I would have considered "doing
| nothing" hell on earth, but with a busy life it's good to
| just do nothing once in a while.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Catering included is big part. No need to cook or to
| clean up.
| npsimons wrote:
| Sounds like a very expensive way to do nothing. I can do
| nothing at home virtually for free.
| verhaust wrote:
| I don't get this kind of vitriol toward cruise goers. I
| like to plan trips as an adventure like you and 6 years
| ago had zero desire to ever go on a cruise. I ended up
| going on one because my in-laws wanted to do a European
| cruise with extended family for their retirement
| celebration. They don't drink, they enjoy their life and
| got to celebrate with family so no loneliness. They are
| just older and don't have the physicality or mental
| desire to plan and go on adventures anymore. They wanted
| a more catered experience for their celebration.
|
| I actually enjoyed the cruise way more than I thought I
| would. The cruise allowed people to do what they want. My
| in-laws and others with less physical ability could go on
| bus tours or taxi around. People like me that preferred
| adventure can spend 8 hours walking through different
| nooks and crannies of the city. Being on deck in an open
| sea was nice and peaceful. I had been to Europe a few
| times before, but the cruise allowed me to go and walk
| around port cities that I wouldn't have been able to go
| to otherwise, without substantially more cost. Each with
| some interesting bits to walk through and good food to
| eat. It was a good, quick, demo for whether I wanted to
| plan a future trip to that city.
|
| If I were planning a trip now for my immediate fanily, I
| wouldn't do a cruise. I do not spew vitriol and insults
| at those that do though. Most of them aren't as pathetic
| as you have been led to think.
| davidashe wrote:
| Look into what life is like for the staff.
|
| A previous commenter mentioned that cruises (paraphrase)
| "lack the colonial feel of mexican resorts" which is a
| testament to the power of consumerist illusion.
| criddell wrote:
| That's why you tip generously and often.
| verhaust wrote:
| Yea, I know the staff can be treated terribly. I can see
| how the OP I replied to can get the impression that all
| cruise goers are bitter/terrible people if their
| anecdotes are mostly staff complaints. I never talked or
| dealt with staff other than ordering food/drinks. I saw
| plenty of people talking rudely to staff with petty
| complaints. I saw one of the entertainers yelling because
| one woman grabbed his crotch as they passed by. The staff
| have to deal with the worst/rudest/entitled cruise goers
| and get paid way too little for it.
| davidashe wrote:
| I am being downvoted, wee:
|
| https://www.dw.com/en/the-truth-about-working-on-a-
| cruise-sh...
| ryandrake wrote:
| Same here. My elderly parents love cruises, but I didn't
| see the allure. Went on one and it was "OK." I spent most
| of the time in one of the hot tubs where "Tommy From
| Boston" was a permanent fixture. He had an infinite
| number of stories in the queue that he had to tell anyone
| who climbed into the tub, and probably drank over 100
| beers a day. It wasn't bad, and I wouldn't go out of my
| way to plan a cruise, but it wasn't the pure torture and
| torment that some people are posting here.
| lostlogin wrote:
| I can't tell, are you Tommy?
| djtango wrote:
| Yeah agreed. They're quite a solid and easy choice when
| you need to cater to the lowest common denominator (not
| meant at all in a derogatory sense!)
|
| If you're planning a holiday for ages spanning 2-75 for
| 3-5 families. What other holidays will have food that
| satisfies everyone's particular tastes, has activities
| for all ages and has a full suite of excursions or
| equally ringfenced "nothing" time. Its also comparatively
| safe.
|
| All without putting the onus on someone to organise a
| huge trip with lots of competing interests and spending
| habits.
|
| Sure, there are probably alternatives but I can
| understand the appeal even though I'm still pretty happy
| planning my own adventures when its me and my wife.
| canjobear wrote:
| For some reason cruises bring out a lot of judgment in
| people. But at the end of the day, some people like
| cruises, others don't. Some people like exploring
| cultures, other people enjoy entertainment at sea. Some
| people like roughing it in an exotic foreign place,
| others prefer luxury hotels. The same person's
| preferences might change over time. Why do you think your
| preferences are better than someone else's?
|
| This kind of judgmental attitude is the thing that's not
| worthy of respect, imo.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| Perhaps but also it has the best metal festivals every
| year. I even get my own toilet and clean bed.
| GJim wrote:
| > "raw dog" (in gen z parlance)
|
| I had to google that......
|
| I'm afraid 'raw dogging' means something very different in
| Blighty!
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Means the same "very different" something here in the US
| too... Maybe doing it in a cruise ship adds to the
| excitement ?
| rswail wrote:
| The term has been "repurposed" by gen z/alpha to mean
| having an experience in real life without filters.
| GJim wrote:
| Well...... shagging in a car whist a bunch of blokes
| stand around watching and wanking certainly is _an
| experience in real life without filters_!
|
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dogging
| immibis wrote:
| "raw dog" and "dogging" are two different sexual slang
| terms. "raw dogging" here is to be understood as to raw
| dog in present tense, not dogging in a manner that is
| raw.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| This is what I love about HN, you can find an expert on
| anything.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| yolo
| saagarjha wrote:
| A supposed expert in anything, yes.
| immibis wrote:
| I'm not an expert, just someone who's heard the slang...
| hgomersall wrote:
| Wiktionary agrees with you...
| https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/raw_dog#English
|
| What does one call dogging in a manner that is raw?
| david927 wrote:
| "dysphemism": https://www.youtube.com/shorts/P0k3foBDm14
| bl0b wrote:
| IMO it is a complete bastardization of the phrase.
|
| The genz/alpha version is a noble form of asceticism,
| while the 'original' meaning is more a hedonistic
| indulgence without regard for consequences to yourself or
| others.
| dleink wrote:
| I think they both share the "disregarding consequences"
| part.
| bl0b wrote:
| I don't see it.
|
| What are the consequences of, for example, staring at the
| live flight map and only the live flight map for a 7 hour
| flight [1]? Sounds boring as hell but you're not going to
| like bore yourself insane
|
| [1] https://www.goal.com/en-us/lists/erling-haaland-raw-
| dogs-7-h...
| ge96 wrote:
| Tape an ipad to a wall, loop an ocean scene... Window
| EnigmaFlare wrote:
| Parallax, sunlight intensity, directionality, heat. It's a
| pity we don't have affordable (or even any?) artificial
| windows that even emulate the sun. Just think how much more
| economically buildings could be made if they had effective
| fake windows.
| shreddit wrote:
| You can do-it-yourself
| https://youtu.be/6bqBsHSwPgw?si=fWO5-pYa6kPYKLZO
| EnigmaFlare wrote:
| Thanks. I'll watch that. It doesn't seem to have images
| but maybe you could have the scenery window separately
| and just look at one thing at a time :P
|
| I've considered setting up mirrors in my garden to
| redirect sunlight into a shaded room but never quite got
| it off the ground.
| janfoeh wrote:
| There is an Italian company called Coelux which builds
| something like this:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJ4TJ4-kkDw
| ayewo wrote:
| That's pretty neat, thanks for linking to Coelux's video.
|
| Apparently the video was recorded in 2014 so they've been
| around for at least 10years now.
| sva_ wrote:
| One step away from a real human factory farm
| lowkey wrote:
| You know, I co-founded a smart LED lighting company well
| over a decade ago and we considered this market.
|
| It seems like the potential applications might make this
| viable now. Cruise ships are a tiny market when compared
| to all the dead commercial office space in downtown cores
| that people wish to convert to residential but can't
| because of lack of sunlight and similar reasons.
| EnigmaFlare wrote:
| That's cool. How did/would the technology have worked?
| zabzonk wrote:
| actually, some interior cabins really do this - big lcd
| screen showing camera views from outside
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKgX8mKjmxU
| ge96 wrote:
| I want to do this one day inside an apartment using one
| of those thin flat TV's, put two in a corner and make a
| city skyline view
| dylan604 wrote:
| The TV would give you the ability to change the view.
| Have a couple of different 24 hour video loops so that it
| shows sunrise/sunset, clouds, storms (only if you had a
| good subwoofer to rumble with thunder) and then sync it
| to your clock.
|
| However, I would be really impressed with a lenticular
| screen so that you get the 6-DoF type of view that would
| change the paralax view as you moved around the room a
| bit.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > lots of people are returning customers so maybe there is
| something to be said for moving slowly across the ocean as
| your life ebbs away ;-)
|
| It's a sort of floating Las Vegas, with casinos and other
| passivities such as (from TFA):
|
| "buffet food, all-inclusive child supervision, shuffleboard,
| plentiful liquor and winking entertainers"
|
| Of course the scale of the operation could produce
| significant unhappiness if the cattle are forced to fight for
| food and live in their own filth, as in the case of the
| notorious Poop Cruise:
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stranded-c.
| ..
| joshstrange wrote:
| Ehh your life "ebbs away" no matter what you are doing. I'm
| neutral on cruises. I went on one with my family and had a
| good time but I don't seek them out. There is something to be
| said for the "almost everything is included" nature of
| cruises. Not having to think about food and just relaxing or
| doing one of the many activities available is attractive.
|
| The various excursions or stops can be fun as well. It's not
| for everyone but I see the appeal. Also, it doesn't cost $10K
| to get a window.
|
| EDIT: I just price checked a cruise of the Caribbean on the
| Princess line (didn't spend time checking the specific ship)
| but for a 7-day cruise for 2 people, a mini-suite (balcony
| and more room), and the premier package (unlimited drinks and
| other stuff) it came out to $3,800 total. If you drop the
| drinks it comes down about $1K. Now you have to get to the
| port and back home so factor in flights but that's not absurd
| pricing IMHO. And you can get a balcony-only for cheaper as
| well.
| criddell wrote:
| The "ebbs away" comment made me think of the perma-
| cruisers. Elderly people who cruise non-stop for years at a
| time. It can be less expensive and more interesting than a
| nice retirement home.
| bluGill wrote:
| You could get under a 1000 if you go the inside cabin, you
| are only in your room to sleep anyway.
| cactusplant7374 wrote:
| More than sleep for me. I need to decompress.
| bluGill wrote:
| Ocean view cabins on the bottom floor are often cheap.
| experienced crusiers know those are the best locations
| and the rich wish their sueit was there as the window
| near the water is a better view and worth more than a
| balcony - but there are so few that cruise lines can't
| afford to make suiets there vs the larger number who
| think higher is better.
| notdang wrote:
| Does it mean that you pay 2800 for two people to drink for
| 7 days?
| fragmede wrote:
| I read it as drinks for two cost $1000, or $500/person,
| or $70/day, which if you drink 7 drinks is only $10 a
| drink. depending on where you're from that's not that far
| out of the picture.
| chengiz wrote:
| A lot of responses from people who have never taken a cruise,
| how typical. There is a lot of nickel and diming but floor
| plans and room views tend to be shown when you're buying.
| Even the interior windowless rooms are extremely well
| designed for space. The lack of windows does not really
| matter (for budget conscious travellers) since you're going
| to be only in there for sleeping and using the bathroom. Of
| course, no room is close to an engine.
| doe_eyes wrote:
| Yeah, I went on a cruise once, and the whole idea is that
| you don't spend time in your cabin. It's not a train. You
| have cinema screens, live performances, restaurants and
| bars, libraries, quiet lounge areas, pools, and so on.
|
| Plus, there are sightseeing opportunities on land, and the
| neat thing about cruise ships is that they dock where the
| action is. Airports are always on the outskirts; ports tend
| to be situated pretty centrally in most cities.
|
| Honestly, it's probably the nicest way to travel to faraway
| places, short of a private jet. It's not for everyone, but
| it's not a dystopian experience. The ships carry insane
| numbers of passengers, but they are also pretty darn
| spacious.
| mnahkies wrote:
| I've only been on one cruise, but I'd semi agree.
| Personally I thoroughly enjoyed the cruise, but the time
| on shore was too short for my liking, I prefer to stay
| the same place for several days and get immersed - I
| think of it as a better all inclusive resort (and
| sometimes that's what you need)
| ghaff wrote:
| Generally speaking, I wouldn't do a cruise except
| somewhere like the Galapagos where it's pretty much the
| option.
|
| But I did do an Atlantic crossing after semi-retiring. I
| paid for a minor cabin upgrade and it wasn't really worth
| it. I'm not sitting on a balcony crossing the Atlantic
| anyway and I'm not spending time in my cabin.
| jghn wrote:
| Some of these exist. For instance Bermuda cruises from
| NYC & Boston will stop there for a few days.
| Unbeliever69 wrote:
| My buddy's wife like cruises. He tolerates them. What he
| does is packs one full suitcase with books and spends the
| entire time catching up on reading, either in his suite
| or the boat library (which some have). He does disembark
| at ports for tours.
|
| He is a college professor so utilizing this time to catch
| up on reading is very important to him. His wife gets to
| drink, gamble, and spend money which makes her happy.
| dotancohen wrote:
| It seems that those three hours gave you insight into one
| particular operators' practices, but obviously not the industry
| as a whole.
| icegreentea2 wrote:
| Cruises hit a spot of:
|
| * All the fun and "not thinking" of an all-inclusive resort
| (though obviously only if you pay for the drink packages) on
| land
|
| * Generally cheaper than all inclusive resorts on mainland USA
| (I'm not as familiar with Europe)
|
| * Competitive on pricing with all inclusive resorts in the
| Caribbean/Mexico
|
| * Get to skip out on flight to the Caribbean/Mexico
|
| * Get to skip out out of the overt semi-colonial feel of
| like... a Caribbean/Mexican all inclusive resort. If nothing
| else, while the crew (ie the people running the ship) are
| almost certainly going to be mostly south/south-east asian, the
| staff (ie the people actually supposed to interact with the
| passengers) are going to be sufficiently multi-culturally mixed
| to help make all those thoughts fade away...
|
| And let's be real about most Caribbean/Mexican all-inclusive
| resorts... they aren't always the cleanest, and most people
| don't leave them except on tightly planned excursions anyways.
| chasil wrote:
| The big draw for me was that my phone wouldn't work.
|
| Peers had a habit of calling me for non-critical, non-
| production problems. The worst was Mardi Gras, where I'm on
| Bourbon Street for Fat Tuesday, and my operations head calls
| me with an analyst on the line and burns fifteen minutes with
| a problem that turned out to be development coding.
|
| My phone did occasionally explode with voicemails and texts
| when I got back to port.
|
| Some of my peers have been forced to take a corporate credit
| card to pay for internet access on their ship.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Why not just not answer your phone while on vacation?
| msrenee wrote:
| Presumably because of pressure from superiors. If they
| know you're in cell range and ignoring them, they'll be
| pissy. If you're simply unable to receive communications,
| that's just the way it is. It shouldn't be like that, but
| it is.
| GJim wrote:
| > If they know you're in cell range and ignoring them,
| they'll be pissy.
|
| Frankly, I'd be "pissy" if my superiors tried calling me
| when I'm on holiday and I would have no qualms informing
| them of that fact.
|
| But then I'm not American.
| ryandrake wrote:
| This is not an "American" thing. I'm American, and I
| would never, ever, ever in any known universe within the
| multiverse, bring my work phone with me on a vacation,
| let alone answer it or do work stuff. And, I would never
| give anyone at work my personal phone number. Strict
| separation of work and personal, and never the twain
| shall meet. We should not accept jobs that keep you on
| the leash even during your vacation and after working
| hours, unless on-call is agreed-to part of your official
| duties.
| ghaff wrote:
| I mean, vacation is vacation. I've also agreed to do
| interviews and such if I'm on vacation and it's
| convenient. I may also have glanced at email from time to
| time and sent a quick response to something with the
| proviso that I'm on vacation.
| hgomersall wrote:
| Not intending this to be snarky, but do you not have
| friends you meet at work? Is it a case of your friends
| knowing not to call your for work reasons?
| ryandrake wrote:
| A few from past jobs, and they're welcome to call if they
| want to do personal/social stuff together, but they are
| not welcome to call because the build is broken or they
| need me to do a database roll back because production is
| down.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > But then I'm not American.
|
| Europeans being smug about how much better their society
| is than Americans' is such an annoying cliche at this
| point. We get it, Europe is a paradise.
|
| Btw, I'm American and I would simply not answer if my
| work tried to contact me while on vacation. Conversely, I
| know multiple Europeans with terribly unhealthy work/life
| balance who work constantly while on vacation.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > Americans' is such an annoying cliche at this point. We
| get it, Europe is a paradise.
|
| I get it, for Americans this is an unusual experience but
| the rest of the planet putting up with American Chiche's
| about us is Tuesday
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| I am the smug American which reminds all the euros that
| they make 1/3rd of what an American does while
| simultaneously working harder than the average rest and
| vest engineer at a tech retirement home like Microsoft.
|
| Everyone I think about how bad American WLB is, I take a
| look at the supposed utopias of Europe and find that
| they're whole nations of crabs in a bucket.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| > I am the smug American which reminds all the euros that
| they make 1/3rd of what an American does
|
| Including healthcare and public facilities? Or does this
| only apply to tech workers?
| chasil wrote:
| In one of the Carlos Goshen documentaries, in his time at
| Renault he required so much overtime that one salaried
| employee threw himself off a balcony at the Renault
| technical center in France.
|
| I guess that Renault employees are American, even if they
| are French.
|
| I think this is described in Apple's documentary, not the
| one from Netflix.
| umanwizard wrote:
| There are plenty of jobs where it's not like that.
|
| Of course it depends on the job, so this isn't 100%
| guaranteed to be the case, but I find people who think
| they always have to be online are often just imagining
| that they have to because of anxiety, and if they just
| didn't respond, nothing bad would happen to them.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I sort of agree. Like who is so important that their peer
| or superior can't handle issues if they're out? How do
| leaders see their business surviving if the person
| they're calling gets hit by a bus?
|
| But at the same time, it does seem that most tech jobs
| expect you to be available after hours for calls and
| extend that to vacation by default.
| namibj wrote:
| I'm Germany HR should be punishing managers for doing
| that, as a single call is basically directly an entire
| day of new vacation time, plus punitive damages for
| disturbing the employee. Of course employees who can't
| afford to bankroll the lawsuit tend to get shafted.
| umanwizard wrote:
| > it does seem that most tech jobs expect you to be
| available after hours for calls and extend that to
| vacation by default
|
| Not any tech job I've ever had, except _very_
| occasionally after hours if unavoidable due to working
| with people in Asia, and planned well in advance. Never
| during vacation, that would be crazy.
|
| But there have probably been people on my same teams who
| thought it _was_ expected, due to them being workaholics
| or just bad at sticking to boundaries.
| giantg2 wrote:
| You have a separate team for on-call? Never need to do
| off-hours elevations? That sounds wild.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Obviously on-call is an exception. That would fall under
| "rare and planned in advance".
| ghaff wrote:
| Back in the day, I took some month-long vacations to
| places like Nepal that were really off the grid at the
| time. Some people I knew were incredulous that I did so.
| My actual managers didn't care because I did my best to
| pick "good" times to do so and did my best to inform
| people and make arrangements. It was never a problem.
|
| I do think, over time, being more or less continuously
| in-touch became more normed.
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Just tell them you'll be out of range?
| Chris2048 wrote:
| So _tell_ them you 're on a cruise, then just turn the
| phone off..
| jkestner wrote:
| "Bring work to your whole self."
| chasil wrote:
| Because I was enjoying myself on Bourbon Street.
|
| That is time that I paid for that they took from me. I
| will never get it back.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Airplane mode exists, as much as people don't pay attention
| to the security briefings anymore
| dpifke wrote:
| Someday, I hope the FAA will catch on that it's a safety
| issue that the incessant droning on about shit-tier
| credit card programs is training people to ignore cabin
| crew announcements.
| bosie wrote:
| Separate your work and personal phone? It seems not the
| healthiest of companies to work for. If you can't set
| boundaries, might need help by using. A second phone
| NBJack wrote:
| That certainly sounds like an express lane to burnout.
|
| Please take care of yourself, and consider the implications
| of peers who think it's OK to call you at these times.
| There are a lot of ways to say "no" without saying it.
| chasil wrote:
| I am within three years of retirement, so the problem
| will soon solve itself.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| This is a fading benefit. The ship I took this summer had
| free Starlink connections powering their WiFi. It wasn't
| great for calls and they blocked video, but texting was
| possible. (You had to be careful though because they also
| exploitatively ran a mobile cellular microcell that charged
| insane data roaming fees, which meant you had to be very
| careful about when you turned on roaming.)
| ghaff wrote:
| Never tried doing a Zoom call, but the trans-Atlantic
| crossing I did in the the spring, I didn't pay for video
| streaming but Starlink at $20/day was pretty good for
| Internet generally. Was tempted to unplug but I didn't.
| Kept my phone on airplane mode the whole time.
| ska wrote:
| "The big draw for me was that my phone wouldn't work."
|
| There isn't really a shortage of other options with that
| feature (though it's shrinking); granted they mostly don't
| have people waiting on you.
|
| Personally I'm a fan of "I'm on vacation, my phone is at
| home" though I understand that doesn't work for everyone.
| If there is an actual emergency, there are people who know
| how/where to reach me.
| badpun wrote:
| Tell me you live in the US without telling me you live in
| the US...
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Get to skip out on flight to the Caribbean/Mexico
|
| This is a strange comment, as most people still have to fly
| to a port city. So maybe that flight is shorter and a
| domestic flight, but it's still requires a flight.
| watsocd wrote:
| There are many Americans who are terrified of flying into a
| foreign city. With a cruise out of Miami, they never have
| to step on foreign soil.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It can provide many benefits beyond people who are
| terrified. All sorts of barriers and annoyances can be
| avoided, such as managing passports, bringing
| medications, language barriers, differences in legal
| rights, dealing with customs, etc. This is even more
| impactful if you're traveling with kids or the elderly.
| toast0 wrote:
| You still need a passport for most cruises. All the big
| cruises are non-US flagged with non-US crews and make a
| stop, if briefly, in a non-US port.
|
| When you finish your journey, you have to go through
| customs and show your passport. And your passport will
| usually be checked before you embark as well.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yes,for most cruises. There are some domestic ones.
| hypercube33 wrote:
| Every cruise I've been on (US Citizen) required a
| passport. There are customs getting on the boat and off
| at the home port.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| International flights are uncomfortable in several
| different ways.
|
| In a cruise you can always just go back to the ship, and
| avoid any random issue.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| > all-inclusive resorts...
|
| And these have zero appeal to me as well.
|
| As someone who road trips all across the U.S. with the wife,
| the highlights have of course been the serendipitous ones.
| nullstyle wrote:
| There's a different kind of serendipity that comes with
| Cruise vacations as opposed to road tripping, but it's
| still very much there. Furthermore, I can't really have a
| road trip experience with 16 people in my travel group; If
| we want to be together, we'll be stuck, packed into a van.
| I can have a great cruise experience with a group that size
| on a cruise or at a resort.
|
| I say this is someone who had taken multiple motorcycle
| trips across the US. Coast to coast on one of them and
| another down Baja.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "I can't really have a road trip experience with 16
| people in my travel group"
|
| Convoys work for this. Perhaps even more fun if they're
| fun cars with a lower car to passenger ratio.
| nullstyle wrote:
| Convoys have become shit shows more often than not in my
| experience, but point taken. So many ways to skin the
| vacation-cat.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yeah, depends on the people and the quality of the
| vehicles. Motorcycle trips tend to work well as convoys.
| aj7 wrote:
| Serendipity on cruises, eh?
|
| The axiom of cruises is: You will never see these people
| again.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| That's the beautiful thing, different people enjoy
| different things, and on vacation, people get to pick and
| do the thing _they_ enjoy, rather than the thing someone
| else enjoys.
|
| Except with cruise ships, morally righteous people are
| declaring this specific thing _wrong_ and trying to keep
| people from being allowed to do this.
|
| The Guardian claims that "At full power the Harmony of the
| Seas' two 16-cylinder engines would each burn 1,377 US
| gallons an hour"
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/21/the-
| worl..., which would be 5.2 cubic meters per hour, or 125
| cubic meters per day, so something between 100 and 125
| tons. Other sources I've seen claim "up to 250 tons"
| (https://www.colorado.edu/mechanical/2016/07/25/how-much-
| fuel...). A ton of diesel-like fuel produces around 2.6
| tons of CO2 (the O2 comes from the air).
|
| So let's say 750 tons. Split across 5000 passengers, a
| 7-day cruise would be 750 / 5000 * 7 = roughly one ton of
| CO2 per passenger per cruise.
|
| Myclimate estimates the total footprint of a 7-day cruise,
| standard double cabin on a >4000 passenger ship, one day in
| port, as 2.1 t (this presumably also covers food etc. so
| it's not surprising that it's higher). They also estimate
| just the flight (one passenger, round trip, economy class)
| of a trip from New York to Maui as 3 tons.
| eightysixfour wrote:
| Most of the people getting on the cruise are also taking
| round trip flights to and from the port, so tack that on
| top of the flights.
| 0xdde wrote:
| You are cherry-picking only one of the environmental
| issues that cruise ships cause. Even that aside, you are
| also ignoring a large part of the discussion in the first
| article you cite, which focuses on all of the other,
| acute, air pollution cruise travel causes in the port
| cities. Focusing on CO2 is a strawman.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| Except, everyone is flying to Miami instead which isn't
| cheap. Also, until only recently, drinking was ala carte
| which was a massive, not included, expense.
|
| Porting in most Caribbean islands is a depressing experience
| as well - you get to see the predatory cruise influence on
| shops right at the port and are also bombarded with locals
| trying to exploit you (no offense to them, they're trying to
| make a living).
|
| If you never leave the ship, it's as you describe it - the
| all-inclusive vacation without any work, but leaving the boat
| is by far the worst part and almost negates any perceived
| benefit imo.
|
| Again, no offense to the locals and I'm sure if they had to
| choose between no tourism and tourism to help the economy,
| they'd choose tourism but it's a very strange and usually sad
| synergy between the cruise industry and the participating
| islands.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| While some of that rings true, I'd say it was still worth
| it to get off the boat and enjoy the islands. They are
| beautiful places with their own rich culture and history,
| despite the over tourism.
| jrm4 wrote:
| No mention yet of "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do
| Again?" by David Foster Wallace?
|
| Okay, so this. Read it if you haven't. Probably the best
| essay on a generally "unheavy" topic I've ever read, and so
| iconic that "Cruise Essay" is dang near becoming its own
| genre, e.g. Gary Shteyngart's "A Meatball At Sea."
| water-data-dude wrote:
| Behold, I have found the source! Original title was
| "Shipping Out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury
| cruise" but then it was given a new title when it was
| included in the short story collection "A Supposedly Fun
| Thing I'll Never Do Again"
|
| https://harpers.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazi...
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I don't understand it either. Ted (friend of mine) called them
| "floating malls" and that has stuck with me.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Sounds about right, but I guess some people like malls.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> It interests me that demand is increasing but I suspect
| thats just good advertising._
|
| And presumably numbers bouncing back after the pandemic - and
| as memories of the pandemic fade.
|
| There was a long period where they couldn't run cruises at all
| due to social distancing. And a load of ships where the
| infection spread like wildfire and there was barely any medical
| care available. And a load of people getting trapped on board
| ships that weren't allowed into ports, so they couldn't get
| repatriation flights, and so on.
|
| Measure against those catastrophic years, and I've no doubt
| demand is increasing!
| sircastor wrote:
| My wife had expressed interest in taking a cruise until COVID
| and the cruise ship debacle when passengers were forced to stay
| on the ship, in their cabins for 2 weeks. Though the likelihood
| of something like that happening again feels pretty low, it has
| forever put her off the idea.
| xxr wrote:
| >It interests me that demand is increasing
|
| I admire your embrace of the "curiosity, not disparagement"
| principle.
| missedthecue wrote:
| _" It interests me that demand is increasing but I suspect
| thats just good advertising."_
|
| How do explain that so many cruise passengers are repeat
| customers?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| This is anecdata:
|
| I know three people who've come back sick from cruises. The
| most interesting one was just last week: someone who had Mal de
| Debarquement Syndrome for six months. She was dizzy all the
| time. There is no cure.
|
| This might be a good one to try on your boss if you want to
| avoid business travel: say you suffer from Mal de Debarquement
| Syndrome!
|
| https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/24796-mal-de-...
| nilamo wrote:
| Isn't that just vertigo?
| AlbertCory wrote:
| But it's got its own name, and in French! Much better.
| m3047 wrote:
| Land sickness. I owned / lived on a 41 foot sailboat for a
| decade. One of my semi-secret amusements was taking people to
| a tavern and buying a pitcher of beer after we'd been out all
| day. Idly drinking beers and having a pleasant conversation,
| and then watching them try to stand up to go use the
| restroom.
| davidcbc wrote:
| I know dozens who have come back completely healthy
| AlbertCory wrote:
| that's what "anecdata" means
| AlbertCory wrote:
| "dozens"?? is that one dozen? Two? More?
|
| how do you know all these patients? Or you just made them
| up?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yeah I cannot imagine the attraction. It's almost literally one
| of the last things I'd ever want to spend vacation time on.
|
| I talked to a guy who took a week-long cruise that he described
| as being locked in a prison breathing diesel exhaust. He said
| there was no place on the ship were you could not smell the
| exhaust.
| davidcbc wrote:
| He was greatly exaggerating or has an incredibly sensitive
| nose
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| Ever worked in the back of a packed and popular restaurant?
| It's always hype/advertising hiding the reality of it all.
| djhworld wrote:
| I watched the videos embedded in the article, annoyingly they
| don't show the cutting process just the splitting part but still.
|
| One thing I always appreciate about watching these sort ofs
| things is how much work and people goes into it, like the people
| repainting the hull and sides of the ship, looks like real hard
| but honest work and probably comes with a great sense of
| satisfaction to boot seeing the results of your graft materialize
| over time.
| dewey wrote:
| The "Silver Spirit Lengthening Video" video in the article has
| a big segment on cutting, with both the matchine-assisted
| cutting and the human-cutting.
|
| https://youtu.be/bhZHhDrVQ2Q
| throwawayffffas wrote:
| None showed any shots from the cutting or the joining from
| the inside though. That would be the most interesting to see.
| jitl wrote:
| The cutting apart of ships at their end of life in salvage
| shipbreaker junkyards is fascinating, terrifying, and sad in
| equal parts. This (and similar) documentaries of the salvage
| beaches in India show a lot of interior cutting:
| https://youtu.be/5jdEG_ACXLw?si=Jx7STIHrAEX0Hq6F
|
| It's a stark juxtaposition from these shots of clean, carefully
| planned and engineered operations in high-tech ports.
| Shipbreaking is often done freehand, based on experience and
| intuition, without much in the way of reference documents or
| safety gear.
| moffkalast wrote:
| To show the power of flex tape?
| pfdietz wrote:
| This reminds me of the case a British destroyer from WW1.
|
| This ship started as two Tribal class destroyers, HMS Nubian and
| HMS Zulu. In 1916, the first lost its bow to a torpedo (and then
| running aground); the second lost its stern to a mine. The
| admiralty decided to salvage the remains by joining them together
| into a new ship, dubbed HMS Zubian.
|
| https://www.twz.com/royal-navy-once-created-a-franken-ship-f...
| nolok wrote:
| In 2020 France did the same with an attack submarine. The Perle
| had a major fire in its forward half, ruining it. The Saphir
| was a submarine of the same class being about to be
| decommissioned. They cut both in half then fitted the forward
| from Saphir onto Perle, which ended up being way cheaper than
| rebuilding a new half.
|
| (they're from an older class that is not being built anymore,
| but the Perle should remain in service a few more years until
| enough of the new class units are delivered)
|
| https://www.naval-group.com/fr/naval-group-livre-le-sous-mar...
|
| https://archives.defense.gouv.fr/content/download/611644/102...
| astura wrote:
| The US did the same for the San Francisco when she struck a
| seamount.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_San_Francisco_(SSN-711)
|
| >In June 2006, it was announced that San Francisco's bow
| section would be replaced at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard
| with the bow of USS Honolulu, which was soon to be retired.
| San Francisco is four years older than Honolulu, but she had
| been refueled and upgraded in 2000-2002. The cost of her bow
| replacement has been estimated at $79 million, as compared
| with the estimated $170 million to refuel and overhaul the
| nuclear reactor of Honolulu.[11]
| pfdietz wrote:
| Another example is the USS Wisconsin, an Iowa-class fast
| battleship. Its bow was damaged in a collision and replaced
| with the bow of the never-completed USS Kentucky, which was
| to have been the last ship in the class.
| lttlrck wrote:
| This is mentioned in the TWZ article.
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| I used to have a car like that - relative in car business
| specialized in buying late model cars that had one end (front
| or back) in good shape, and other end wrecked, and would use
| the two good halves to make a new car. He used a jig to get the
| alignment precise, and claimed it was as good as factory. The
| car seemed fine - there was no way to tell.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Sounds like a salvage title to me
| GJim wrote:
| A 'cut and shut'?
|
| Where do you live for that to be legal?
|
| https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=cut+and+shut
| rightbyte wrote:
| Most limousines are made like that. The practice is fine in
| theory but I guess the business is too shady for the
| vehicles to be fine in practice.
| seized wrote:
| There's a whole Well There's Your Problem (an engineering
| disasters podcast) about exactly that. I think the
| conclusion is that it isn't fine in theory or practice...
|
| https://youtu.be/K5sQJB6Jvkw?si=hq8yGx2i9FQy-wAB
| HarHarVeryFunny wrote:
| Well, this was a while back (90's perhaps) and he was
| building these in upstate NY. I've no idea if it was legal
| the time - I was driving plenty of cheap crap cars back
| then (Ford Pinto, Ford Ltd II ex. cop car with single digit
| mpg, '78 TransAm), and relative to those this was pretty
| nice!
| semanticist wrote:
| This is called a 'cut-and-shut' and is considered to be
| extremely dangerous. There's no way you'd get insurance for
| one if you disclosed its origins, which he probably wasn't
| when he was selling them on.
|
| In the UK at least, passing one of these off as a standard
| repair is illegal (it's a 'radically altered vehicle' and
| would need to be registered as such with a special licence
| plate).
| lnsru wrote:
| Funny thing is that one can do it properly and it even will
| be as good as from the factory. For that one must peel off
| whole car's body sheet wise and weld/glue the not damaged
| sheets again. Also add anti corrosive paint in between.
| However this is not the cheap way. A business doing this will
| not survive. It just takes too long. So it would be healthy
| to assume, that such repairs are rolling coffins at the end.
|
| And you're right - to identify coffin car a mobile x-ray
| device is needed. Edit: and yes, I was driving a car that
| wasn't well repaired and absolutely safe for 5 years.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > HMS Zubian.
|
| I prefer Nuzu.
| throw-the-towel wrote:
| A WW2 Btitish ship, the HMS _Porcupine_ , got hit by a
| submarine and ultimately was split in two halves, promptly
| nicknamed HMS _Pork_ and HMS _Pine_.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Cruise ships have a huge ecological impact everywhere they go.
| They burn colossal amounts of fuel, they produce lots of toxic
| exhaust, sewage, etc. A lot of destinations for these things
| don't exactly have a lot of regulations for any of this either.
|
| Just flying to your destination and staying in some nice place is
| arguably both better for the environment and probably a lot more
| enjoyable depending on your tastes. Not that flying is
| particularly good for the environment of course. Or that
| enjoyable these days. But I wanted to put in context just how
| nasty cruise ships can be.
| raldi wrote:
| They produce sewage that would otherwise not have existed?
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I assume they mean that sewage at home is treated.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| We don't normally dump our sewage straight in the ocean.
| tharkun__ wrote:
| No, sometimes it goes directly into Lake Ontario and the
| river. Plans put in place by previous
| administrations over the years said that by 2038, waste
| water dumped into the lake would finally be as close to
| zero.
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-storm-
| water-w...
| raldi wrote:
| Nor do cruise ships.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Years ago, Key West built enough extra sewage treatment
| capacity to process sewage from the many cruise ships which
| visit the city. There was a plan to require all ships to
| discharge and pay for treatment so that sewage was not dumped
| 12 miles off-shore, which is only 3 miles past the reef.
| Captains get a bonus for fuel savings, so they tend to dump
| as soon as it is legal.
|
| The cruise industry threatened to remove Key West from their
| list of stops, wrote some checks to the various non-profits,
| and the status quo was preserved.
|
| The cruise ship industry is an ecological disaster, by
| choice.
| raldi wrote:
| What do you think happens to land-based sewage?
| rcpt wrote:
| It's treated in huge facilities. We don't just flush it
| raw into the water
| raldi wrote:
| Nor do cruise ships.
| consumer451 wrote:
| I just looked it up, and it does appear that cruise ships
| now treat their black water instead of just macerating it
| like they used to. I would love to know: is that all
| cruise ships, in all areas?
| saagarjha wrote:
| Sure they do. Not every cruise ship does wastewater
| treatment.
| raldi wrote:
| Google MARPOL Annex IV
| saagarjha wrote:
| Ok, I read that and it explains circumstances in which it
| is ok to discharge raw sewage?
| ptsneves wrote:
| Ahahah the waters of the third world cities like London
| and Paris invite you for a bath.
| consumer451 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Big economic blocks like the EU and the US should force the
| cruise ships to operate sustainably and not pollute the
| literal sh*t out of the port cities they stop at.
| Diesel555 wrote:
| "We should properly tax/negate negative externalities" in
| accordance with microeconomics. It's at the core of basic
| economics and both conservative and liberal economists
| would agree with this statement. It's a well studied
| field. The problem is policy. I often post this, but I
| really wish microeconomics was a required course in high
| school or primary. I find it to be one of the least
| understood of the well-established fields, and one that
| matters when we get older and vote or debate on these
| topics.
| Neil44 wrote:
| Fish and birds poop in the water, all day. It's just
| fertilizer.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| And animals poop in your yard. Do you? It's just
| fertilizer.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Sewage that would be treated, not pumped raw into the ocean.
| raldi wrote:
| Just like on a cruise ship.
| dghughes wrote:
| This makes me feel uneasy. Wouldn't a longer ship but the same
| beam (width) mean it's less stable?
| ReptileMan wrote:
| And now I am reminded that I have to replay Leisure Suit Larry 7
| ...
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| After owning small cruising sailboats for about twenty years my
| wife and I did the calculation that we could sell our last boat
| and go on two of three cruises a year. The big cost of cruising,
| by the way, is not so much the ship but expensive shore
| excursions that sometimes take you away from the ship overnight.
|
| I get all the complaints people have against cruising but for us
| we have seen so much of the world in relative comfort. The trick
| is to plan trips around the shore excursions and what experiences
| you want to have. The ship is just the means to get to those
| experiences without having to hop on and off airplanes
| frequently.
| pfdietz wrote:
| We went on a river cruise last year (Viking, on the Danube). I
| thought of it like a bus tour of that part of Europe, except
| the hotel moves along with you.
| dmd wrote:
| It's also possible to do this on "cruise ships" that aren't
| "cruise ships". My wife and I toured the Dalmation coast
| (Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece) on the
| https://www.yachtcharterfleet.com/luxury-charter-yacht-48957...
| ten years ago - a cruise, but a cruise with ~30 other people,
| not ~6000. It's a big difference! The ship itself was, as you
| say, really just the way to get there; everything happened on-
| shore.
| npsimons wrote:
| > a cruise, but a cruise with ~30 other people, not ~6000.
|
| _This_ is the sort of thing that tempts me - an enchanting
| vision, like something out of "Death on the Nile", only
| minus the death. Just a small floating hotel that takes you
| to interesting places, not a floating amusement park combined
| with buffet.
| jordanb wrote:
| Sailing in a sailboat and being in a floating hotel are so
| diametrically opposed experiences that it's not even worth
| comparing.
|
| It's like the difference between back-country camping and going
| to Animal Kingdom.
| bluGill wrote:
| Try an alaska cruise. You are there for the views that cannot
| be seen from land and not the tourist traps.
| vintermann wrote:
| This is a point, I think. Is it great with cruise traffic to
| Svalbard? Maybe not. Is it better than having all those
| people fly to Longyearbyen by plane, and wander around on
| guided tours in the wilderness? Definitively.
| jordanb wrote:
| > Is it better than having all those people fly to
| Longyearbyen by plane, and wander around on guided tours in
| the wilderness? Definitively.
|
| Don't see how you can make that determination. All those
| people are flying to Tromso or whatever anyway to get on
| the boat. And the boat is an ecological disaster. Plus the
| boat belching out 1000s of people into Longyearbyen is a
| mess for the people there. They don't stay in the hotels or
| go on the tours provided by local tour operators, hurting
| the local economy.
|
| There's a reason why Svalbard is currently imposing
| sweeping regulation on cruise ships. They are not a plus
| for the archipelago or the community. Just like everywhere
| else cruise ships operate, they serve mostly to capture as
| much as the financial upside from tourism as possible while
| leaving as little on the plate for the locals as possible,
| while dumping them with externalities.
| tempest_ wrote:
| Honestly the reason I am "against" cruising is because they are
| usually floating environmental travesties
| vintermann wrote:
| They often are. Still, the question is always how bad they
| are per tourist, and I suspect that the solo sailing folks
| aren't much better in that regard.
| jordanb wrote:
| Crew/passengers on a small sailboat will use less fresh
| water in a day than a cruise ship passenger uses to flush
| the toilet once.
|
| They will know exactly how much water they used down to the
| quart, same with diesel. They will have very tight energy
| budgets as well and track it by the watt hour. Their energy
| will likely come from renewable sources.
|
| Instead of daily hot showers, on a small boat you get a
| cold salt water shower every few days with a pint of fresh
| water at the end to rinse.
|
| So, in conclusion, doubtful.
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I agree. Also, there is one cruise ship line I won't use now
| because in my opinion they don't treat their employees well
| at all. Also, it is really tough work on any cruise line.
| YVoyiatzis wrote:
| Reminds me of the limo industry in the '80s, when [stretch
| limos](https://www.oldtimer-auktionen.at/auktionen/wp-
| content/uploa...) just kept getting longer and longer.
| d_burfoot wrote:
| The cruise industry is very fascinating to me. I think in the
| medium term we could see significant populations of people living
| long-term on cruise ships; it seems like the economic model is
| long-run more efficient (assuming the shipbuilding industry is
| very good at building these structures). You avoid the property
| tax, zoning, and regulatory burdens that go with living on land.
| It's likely safer because you're not driving cars and you don't
| let criminals onboard. And Starlink solves the internet access
| problem.
| WillAdams wrote:
| It's already begun with some news articles noting that retirees
| find back-to-back cruise voyages less expensive than nursing
| home care:
|
| https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/is-living-on-a-cruise-...
| bushbaba wrote:
| Is their nursing care on cruise ships though? Not exactly the
| same
| okasaki wrote:
| Don't people disappear (fall overboard) all the time?
|
| Also I would think diseases spread pretty easily on ships.
| ooterness wrote:
| Every day we move closer to WALL-E becoming reality.
|
| "'B' is for Buy N Large, your very best friend."
| asib wrote:
| > you don't let criminals onboard
|
| Plenty of crimes happen at sea. Cruise companies expend effort
| to sweep these crimes under the carpet:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nCT8h8gO1g
|
| Criminals are people who've been convicted of a crime. These
| people are either:
|
| - allowed on cruises (I'm not aware of a "no conviction" clause
| when buying a cruise ticket)
|
| - in jail, in which case you can also make the argument they're
| not allowed out in public
|
| So criminals are allowed on board, and people who might commit
| a crime are not necessarily criminals yet.
| vintermann wrote:
| There was an effort a few years back (I looked it up, and it
| was 2001, oops) to market this, a perpetual cruise ship for
| retired people. "MS The World". I suspect it didn't do all that
| great, since there weren't a lot of copycats, but it took until
| covid to strand the project.
|
| Now apparently there's a second ship trying the same business
| model, "Villa Vie Odyssey". Predictably, the marketing suggests
| it's the first one ever of its kind.
| handfuloflight wrote:
| https://villavieresidences.com/residences/
|
| Annual carrying costs coming to 30% of the purchase price.
| 1-6 wrote:
| How big can you make these things before they fall apart from
| natural forces?
| ryukoposting wrote:
| As the author notes, this isn't a concept that was invented by
| the cruise companies.
|
| My grandfather worked as a welder for a shipyard. I remember him
| telling me about how they would cut a barge in half, and he and a
| few other guys would weld in a new chunk that would make the
| thing longer. This would have been 60ish years ago.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Great - more air pollution from bunker fuel fumes at port cities!
|
| Big economic blocks like the EU and the US should force the
| cruise ships to operate sustainably and not pollute the literal
| sh*t out of the port cities they stop at.
| Neil44 wrote:
| It's my understanding that bunker fuel is only used out at sea.
| seabrookmx wrote:
| Yes most nations require cruise ships (sometimes even cargo
| ships) switch to a refined fuel once they're a certain
| distance from shore. Nobody wants their pier covered in soot.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Yes, it only destroys the environment from afar
| fhsm wrote:
| Of course, outside the environment --
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
| Diesel555 wrote:
| "We should properly tax/negate negative externalities" in
| accordance with microeconomics. It's at the core of basic
| economics and both conservative and liberal economists would
| agree with this statement. It's a well studied field. The
| problem is policy. I often post this, but I really wish
| microeconomics was a required course in high school or primary.
| I find it to be one of the least understood of the well-
| established fields, and one that matters when we get older and
| vote or debate on these topics.
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| Have to confess the "serving class caters to the punter class"
| thing annoys me a bit.
|
| Why can't modern cruises just be like the Love Boat on tv?
| swader999 wrote:
| Meh. We do this to software projects all the time.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| The article made several mentions of requiring additional trained
| crew. Where is the gap in getting staff? I expect there is a tiny
| fraction of specialists (engineers, medical, ship command) and a
| boat load of low skill jobs (cooks, cleaning, waiters, pool boys,
| bar tenders, etc) who could do on the job training if required.
| perlgeek wrote:
| I've told the story before on HN, but maybe it fits here too...
|
| A great-uncle of mine lived in Eastern Germany. He bought a
| pleasure cruiser, about 28 meters length. For everything longer
| than 25m, he would have needed a captain's patent to operate, so
| he cut out a bit more than 3m at the rear, fixed up all the
| wires, pipes and shafts, and then had nice (even if imbalanced-
| looking) boat.
|
| So he did the opposite of what the article is about :-)
|
| He spent most of his vacations on that boat, cruised up and down
| the rivers with his family. https://www.ddr-
| binnenschifffahrt.de/fotogalerie-gross/Passa... you can see that
| it ends pretty abruptly at the rear.
| mattpallissard wrote:
| Here in Alaska some fisheries and permits have historical
| length restrictions on vessels. In order to carry the gear,
| ice, and catch they wanted they would cut boats in half
| longitudinally and widen them.
| TruffleLabs wrote:
| This video shows such an expansion, increasing passengers from
| 212 to 312
|
| https://youtu.be/OTpVxCOjmPY?si=FK5qR-Tvf027WZKM
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| The photographs satisfy the Stephen Biesty's Incredible Cross
| Sections of Everything part of my brain.
| green-salt wrote:
| After watching Brick Immortar on youtube this sounds like the
| root cause of a future episode.
| j-a-a-p wrote:
| You might think, welding a ship together: what could possibly go
| wrong?
|
| The first ships that were welded would suddenly break in two.
| These were the liberty ships used in WW2:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_ship
| akudha wrote:
| What can one do in these massive, employee abusing, law dodging,
| polluting piles of monstrosities that can't be done on land?
| Drink, party, fight (Google cruise ship fights for some colorful
| stories)...? makes zero sense.
|
| If one is going to watch sea life, dive etc, then it makes some
| sense.
|
| I honestly don't understand the appeal
| KetoManx64 wrote:
| Don't they typically stop at different ports in different
| countries during the trip?
|
| Other than that, I don't understand it either, especially since
| you're just stuck on the boat for the majority of the time.
| akudha wrote:
| Ye, they do stop. From what I have heard, these are short
| stops to do touristy things
| ericyd wrote:
| While I have no love for cruise ships, this type of engineering
| absolutely blows my mind. Same with mega skyscrapers or any other
| huge engineering project with exacting requirements. In web dev
| I'm lucky if I even get a complete spec to work from, so
| millimeter precision over the scale of a ship is far outside of
| my experience.
| rkagerer wrote:
| What's the impact on ship strength, stability, handling, etc? I
| assume that's considered at the design stage? Any cons to a
| patchjob like this vs. building it bigger from scratch?
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