Prior to 2020 unless you're a maritime history buff
you probably didn't think too much about what happened to a cruise ship when it
retired from service. Decades of growth in the industry has
kept cruise ships in service for unprecedented lengths of time,
with most of the focus on fancy new ships rather than the ageing cruise ships
at the end of their career. But this year everything has changed and
we've seen numerous popular cruise ships making
unexpected final journeys to the scrapyard. I'm Chris Frame and
today we're going to be looking at ship
recycling.
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Ships have been scrapped and recycled for about as long as ships have existed,
and just like building demolition on land - or aircraft demolition which we've
seen quite a lot of this year - it can be a very dangerous process and
requires skill to be successfully undertaken.
Scrapping a ship allows materials such as steel,
aluminium, glass and the like to be extracted,
reused and repurposed. This has led to terms like 'it's being turned into razor
blades' to become a common slang for a ship
that's headed to scrap. For the most part, ships are withdrawn
from service as newer vessels come online to replace them.
This is a gradual process with some ships being retained longer than others
due to high demand or delays in the construction of their
replacements. Most ships that have existed
have ended their days in the scrapyard and this includes some of the most
famous ships that the world has ever seen!
In the 1930s Cunard's record-breaking express liner Mauretania,
holder of the transatlantic speed record from 1909 to 1929,
was scrapped - as was the White Star Line's Olympic,
sister of the ill-fated Titanic and heralded in 1911
as being the largest and most luxurious liner in the world!
The french liner Libertè, formerly Norddeutscher Lloyd's record-breaking Europa
was scrapped in the 1960s, so too was Britannic II,
the last White Star Liner in service, and even ships that had proudly served their
nations in world wars ended up in the scrapyards. Perhaps the
most notable example of this was Cunard's Aquitania
which served proudly in both World War I and World War II
yet in 1950 she was scrapped at a yard in Scotland.
In the 1960s as jet aircraft made passenger ships obsolete,
many ocean liners were sent to the scrapyard for dismantling.
This includes P&O's Orcades, Oronsay and Orsova.
As well as many ships of the Union Castle Line, French Line and Cunard Line.
While scrap is a common fate for most ships, in recent years
cruise ships have been kept in service for longer and longer;
thanks to the unprecedented global cruising boom that we've experienced
over the past few decades. This isn't to say that ships haven't
been broken up during this time, with some pretty notable ships having
been sent to scrap. This includes the SS. Norway the Pacific
Princess better known as 'The Love Boat' and also
other ships that were famous in local waters such as P&O's Pacific Sky,
all ending up in scrap yards over the last few decades.
But for many cruise ships the growth of cruising has extended their service life
ships that were designed as premier liners for big brands such as
Carnival Cruise Lines Royal Caribbean and Princess Cruises
have found second lives - and sometimes even third or fourth lives -
with smaller brands such as Pullmantur, CMV and even Fred Olsen. In 2020 the
COVID-19 pandemic has brought the growth of cruising to a grinding halt,
with most of the world's cruise ships currently in a state of 'warm
layup' in oceans around the world - you can check out my video about the
ships in warm layup at the moment in the info card or in the
description below. This has led to some cruise lines such
as Pullmantur and CMV ending operations, while other brands
such as Carnival, Costa, P&O and Holland America have
been forced to reduce their fleet in an attempt to stem the losses. While
some ships including Holland America's Amsterdam and Rotterdam
have been sold for future use as cruise ships, others have been less lucky.
Costa Victoria, Carnival Fantasy, Carnival Inspiration
and Pullamntur's Sovereign and Monarch have all been sold for scrap in recent
months, with the latter four vessels all heading
to the same Turkish scrapyard. Generally when a ship is sold for scrap
it is formally withdrawn from passenger service
and the ship is prepared for the final voyage of the scrapyard. This process
often includes removing valuable items from onboard the ship
in a process known as de-storing. In days gone by
this was often an orderly and well planned out process -
a good example being in 1997 when the P&O liner Canberra was withdrawn from
service. Alongside in sSouthampton the ship was
de-stored with items such as valuable P&O memorabilia,
artworks, signage and other on-board trinkets of particular value
removed from the ship. It might surprise you though that the majority of things
that are on board the ship when it's withdrawn from service
go with the ship to the scrapyard; this includes all sorts of things
from beds to dining tables to chairs to lounges,
lighting and carpets all left on board and either unsold
or recycled by the scrapyard. Sometimes entire sections of a ship can
be saved during the scrapping process and used again. This was certainly the
case with White Star Line's Olympic where paneling, ceiling decoration and
other fixtures from the ship's interior were reused at the White Swan Hotel in
England - while other parts of the interior
can be found on display at the Sea City Museum in Southampton. While ships like
Canberra, Big Red Boat II, Carnival Fantasy, Carnival Inspiration,
Sovereign and Monarch sailed to the scrapyard wearing their
original name and livery, in some cases ships bound for the
scrapyard may be renamed and de-branded for their final voyage.
For example the SS. Norway was renamed before she made her final journey
to the beaches of Alang in India. While the current media attention on scrapping
ships has shown some dramatic footage of large cruise ships being driven up onto
the beaches under their own power, this form of scrapping isn't always the
way it's done! Norway for example was taken under tow
owing to her engines being unserviceable after an onboard explosion,
which was actually the cause of her exit from service. More recently
this was seen with the Costa Concordia; having been partially re-floated
the ship was towed to Genoa in Italy where she was dismantled.
Sometimes the scrapping process commences while the ship is still in the
water, as was the case with the Olympic which
had its superstructure dismantled in Jarrow, England,
while the hull was towed to Scotland for final dismantling.
Scrapping a ship on site is also an option to remove the damaged or sunken
ship, where re-floating it and towing it away
is not an option. A well-known example of this is the former ocean liner Queen
Elizabeth that caught fire in 1972 and sunk in
Hong Kong harbour while being converted into a floating
university. Between 1974 and 1975 parts of the ship were scrapped
on site. The precise scrapping process differs
depending on the ship and the scrapyard where it is being dismantled.
Some ships are harder to scrap than others which can make the process very
drawn out, as was the case with Canberra. Some
scrapyards will commence the process with a ceremonial cutting of the bow,
which we've seen recently on board the monarch in Turkey. This also happened
with Norway at Alang, and the tip of her bow has been
preserved in Paris as a monument to her original career as the SS. France.
The concept of recycling a ship isn't just limited to the
entire scrapping of a vessel; in fact many ships are given large-scale
refurbishments which produce a lot of scrap metal and this
metal is recycled for further use. A good example of this is QE2, which
between 1986 and 1987 was converted from steam power
to diesel electric. The re-engineering process resulted in
4,700 tons of scrap including the ship's original steam turbines, boilers
and even the propellers. One of those propellers was actually directly
recycled into sets of golf clubs! When the ship
returned to service these golf clubs were brought on board and sold in the
gift shop at a premium! Another thing to note is
that during the refurbishment process many items on board a ship are replaced.
Collectors can purchase items from the scrapyard if a ship is being completely
scrapped, or from the shipyard if a ship is being
refurbished. Some of these items do make their way back into museums
which gives us a glimpse into how ships looked during various periods of their
careers. In rare cases some passenger ships are
preserved for the long term. Notable examples of large preserved
passenger ships include the SS. Rotterdam the RMS Queen Mary and the
Queen Elizabeth 2, all of which have been converted into
floating hotels and museums. This is definitely the exception to the
rule and as I mentioned before most passenger ships that have existed
have ended up being scrapped. In fact there are more Pyramids that you
can visit today than there are original preserved ocean liners!
Preserving your ship in a stationary manner is an expensive process
and requires a great deal of insight and funds to make it a successful venture.
Even in these cases the ships are often refurbished
with original items being removed from the ship unsold,
recycled and in some cases scrapped. A good example is the RMS. Queen Mary.
When she was converted into a hotel ship her original funnels were removed from
the ship and new ones were put in their place. The
metal from those original funnels was recycled and scrapped.
I hope this video gave you some insight as to how and why ships are scrapped.
If you found the video interesting please give it a thumbs up and don't
forget to subscribe and hit the notification bell so you don't miss
future videos. I would like to send out a huge thank
you to Peter Kengo of www.midshipcentury.com - Peter is one of
the most knowledgeable people when it comes
to the topic of scrapping ships and he has a fantastic series of DVDs as
well as an informative website which you can find
in the link in the description below. I'd also like to send my thanks to
Andrew Sassoli-Walker a Southampton based photographer
who provides me with access to his fantastic imagery of cruise ships based
in Southampton, and also my thanks to Rob Henderson and
Doug Cremer, for access to their fantastic Henderson
and Cremer collection. I've linked to both in the description
below if you're interested in what else is happening
in the cruising world at the moment. Check out my cruise news playlist
or if you're more interested in maritime history and the great stories of ocean
liners of days gone by take a look at my maritime history
playlist. Thanks again for watching and until next time
I hope to see you onboard.
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