“Usually the day begins with troubleshooting,” mentioned Captain Edward Perrin, vice chairman of marine operations at Virgin Voyages, who was monitoring potential protestors making an attempt to disrupt cruise site visitors in Amsterdam on a Tuesday morning in August.
Overseeing the marine division, Perrin manages nautical issues, security, safety, environmental, insurance policies and procedures and maritime compliance.
“Day by day is one thing utterly completely different,” mentioned Perrin, who joined Virgin eight years in the past.
Coronary heart
“We check with the operational area as clean operations; we would like the ships to run easily, and centered on the coronary heart of that’s security, safety and the surroundings. If we will’t get these issues proper not one of the relaxation follows,” mentioned Perrin.
Whereas Virgin’s latest two ships, the Resilient Girl and Good Girl, are fitted with shore energy plugs, the Scarlet Girl and Valiant Girl are slated for retrofits.
“We’re retrofitting the Valiant Girl now. We simply put in a brand new shell door to take the high-voltage shore connection,” Perrin mentioned, noting that over time, itinerary planning will change routes to utilize connections the place out there.
“There’s a lot occurring with the technical and sustainability groups. We’re working closely on completely different gas sorts,” Perrin continued.
Coaching
Virgin trains its deck and engine groups within the UK, the place it has a simulator. Most crew head there about every year for per week.
“We have now a bonus with our coaching in that now we have 4 an identical sister ships, and it’s fairly a bit simpler to coach that means. We’re sufficiently small that everybody is aware of everybody,” Perrin mentioned.
Among the many challenges is sustaining continuity and discovering the subsequent set of shipboard leaders, mentioned Perrin.
“The present leaders are working more durable to get junior officers to the extent of expertise they should have, and that’s one thing we’re pushing,” Perrin continued.
New initiatives embrace a giant funding in a cadet coaching program, the place Virgin is placing deck, engine and electrical cadets by way of school of their respective international locations.
Perrin mentioned the corporate was working exhausting to get an excellent unfold of nationalities aboard.
Captains and senior officers on Virgin have a barely completely different function, as they’re stored out of the general public eye. Past an preliminary announcement, the general public deal with system is simply used for emergencies. The captain, not like different cruise manufacturers, just isn’t entrance and middle. There isn’t a cocktail get together, and the captain just isn’t marrying friends both.
“We wish to pull again from bulletins,” Perrin mentioned. “If sailors have questions, they will use the app or ask the crew. We would like our captains to focus on the core perform of operating the ship safely. That is the place they need to be spending their power.”
Sturdy Leaders
What it comes right down to, in line with Perrin, is having sturdy leaders.
“You must have sturdy leaders you possibly can belief implicitly and the most effective communications. We do issues otherwise and there’s no line of demarcation between ship and shore.
“All selections are made by way of a partnership between the 2,” he continued.
Each two weeks the corporate has a clean operations discussion board assembly, together with executives from the shoreside staff in addition to captains, chief engineers and different senior shipboard workers that be a part of by video.
“We share learnings, close to misses and produce up issues. The shoreside staff tells the ships what they’re engaged on and we get suggestions … It’s a really tight-knit and shut group.”
Excerpt from the Cruise Trade Information Quarterly Journal Fall 2024