Italy-based Fincantieri, one of many world’s largest shipbuilders, will assemble two ships for Viking Ocean Cruises below a contract the businesses introduced on June 21, 2024. The 2 ships, as but unnamed, are scheduled for supply in 2028 and 2029.
The contract is topic to financing and is assessed as a “robust order,” which means one that’s value between 500 million and 1 billion Euros. Every of the ships will weigh in at about 54,000-gross tons, with a capability for 998 visitors in 499 cabins.
Viking Ocean Cruises is a unit of Switzerland-based Viking, which additionally operates a big fleet of river ships in Europe and elsewhere. Its ocean-going ships are categorized as small, by business requirements, with whole lodging for below 1,000 visitors. The all-balcony ships are identified for his or her austere but inviting Scandinavian design.
Fincantieri and Viking Ocean Cruises have partnered on earlier ship-builds. The road’s two latest vessels, Viking Saturn and Viking Neptune, each had been constructed at Fincantieri shipyards in Italy.
Viking Saturn is the road’s latest ship, and was christened in New York in June 2023. Viking Neptune was named in January 2023 in Los Angeles.
Fincantieri is at the moment constructing two ocean vessels for Viking. Viking Vela is slated to enter service in December 2024 whereas Viking Vesta is scheduled to debut in mid-2025.
The most recent ship order will proceed Viking’s dedication to utilizing environmentally pleasant fuels and zero-emission energy sources, though the businesses’ announcement didn’t present specifics on gasoline sources or emission applied sciences.
Viking Neptune was constructed with an experimental hydrogen gasoline cell module, a inexperienced expertise that, based on the US Division of Vitality, is “not solely pollution-free, but in addition can have greater than two occasions the effectivity of conventional combustion applied sciences.”
“This order additional cements our relationship with Viking and establishes Fincantieri because the companion of alternative for ship house owners trying to construct vessels match for each present and future vitality sources,” mentioned Pierroberto Folgiero, CEO and Managing Director of Fincantieri.
“Collectively, Fincantieri and Viking are main the transport business within the path to internet zero,” Folgiero added.
Viking, based in 1997 by Torstein Hagen, went public on the New York Inventory Alternate on Could 1, 2024, elevating roughly $1.5 billion. Viking Ocean Cruises at the moment has 9 ships working world itineraries.
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Viking Ocean Cruises’ latest ship, Viking Saturn, is predicated in Tilbury (London), and crusing 14-day cruises to Bergen, Norway, with calls at Dover and Liverpool, England; Dublin, Eire; Belfast, Northern Eire; Anglesey Island, Wales; and Edinburgh, Invergordon, and Orkney Island, Scotland.
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In fall of 2024 and winter of 2024/2025 the ship will supply voyages between Rome and Athens, and from Barcelona to Rome, Venice, and Istanbul, amongst different embarkation ports.
Fincantieri considers the brand new contract to be affirmation that the cruise business is absolutely recovered, with visitor numbers again at pre-pandemic ranges.
Viking is amongst different main cruise manufacturers which have new-builds on order with the Italian shipbuilder. In April 2024, Fincantieri introduced a main contract with Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings that may see the shipyard constructing 4 vessels for Norwegian Cruise Line and two ships every for sister manufacturers Oceania Cruises and Regent Seven Seas Cruises.
The vessels may have staggered supply dates by way of 2036.
