SCH has been continuing to service its cruise ship customers despite normal cruising activity being suspended.
Besides ships making regular calls to load stores before sailing to anchor offshore, some vessels like Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s Majesty of the Seas have made specific calls in Southampton to carry out necessary maintenance.
Majesty of the Seas arrived in the port’s Western Docks for an anchor change that required heavy lift expertise and equipment managed by SCH during an eight-hour operation.
Having been damaged previously, the existing 12-tonne anchor was offloaded to the quayside by mobile crane. The on-board replacement anchor was then lowered to the quayside from the bow of the ship’s deck before being attached to the anchor chain and lifted for it to be replaced in the hull. The damaged anchor was also lifted on to the ship’s deck.
The SCH team managed the complete operation, organising sub-contractors and utilising their own specialist heavy lift expertise to ensure Majesty of the Seas was ready to resume her stand-by positioning off the UK Coast as the cruising world waits to re-start business.
SCH Cruise manager Paulo Oliveira explained: “We’ve seen several storing visits by our regular cruise ship customers but this was a special requirement that involved getting together a team of experts to carry out an unusual operation. It required careful co-ordination and planning while adhering to the current conditions that we have to work under.”
