Sapphire Princess
Encyclopedia
The Sapphire Princess is a cruise ship
Cruise ship
A cruise ship or cruise liner is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship's amenities are part of the experience, as well as the different destinations along the way...

 owned by Princess Cruises
Princess Cruises
Princess Cruises is a British-American owned cruise line, based in Santa Clarita, California in the United States. Previously a subsidiary of P&O Princess Cruises PLC, the company is now one of ten cruise ship brands operated by Carnival Corporation & PLC and accounts for approximately 19% share...

 which entered service in 2004. It is one of the world's largest cruise ships, with a capacity of approximately 2670 passengers and is the sixth Gem Class ship built by Princess Cruises
Princess Cruises
Princess Cruises is a British-American owned cruise line, based in Santa Clarita, California in the United States. Previously a subsidiary of P&O Princess Cruises PLC, the company is now one of ten cruise ship brands operated by Carnival Corporation & PLC and accounts for approximately 19% share...

.

The ship was christened on June 10, 2004 in Seattle; it was the first cruise ship ever to be christened in that port.

The Sapphire Princess (2008) travels the Alaskan inside passage route one way from May to September, Mexican Riviera and Hawaii in the winter, with a Pacific Coast cruise during the transition weeks.

Construction

It was built in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
, or MHI, is a Japanese company. It is one of the core companies of Mitsubishi Group.-History:In 1870 Yataro Iwasaki, the founder of Mitsubishi took a lease of Government-owned Nagasaki Shipyard. He named it Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works, and started the shipbuilding business on a full scale...

, the second Princess Cruises ship to be built in a Japanese shipyard. Its only sister ship
Sister ship
A sister ship is a ship of the same class as, or of virtually identical design to, another ship. Such vessels share a near-identical hull and superstructure layout, similar displacement, and roughly comparable features and equipment...

 is the Diamond Princess
Diamond Princess (ship)
Diamond Princess is a large cruise ship owned and operated by Princess Cruises. She began operation in March 2004 and primarily cruises in Alaska during the summer and the Asia in the winter. She is a Grand Class ship and subclassed as a Gem Class ship...

.

Its construction was delayed when a major fire swept through the ship during construction. Faced with the resulting delay, her sister ship which was being constructed at the same time assumed the role of the Diamond. This name swap assisted in keeping the delivery date of the Sapphire Princess on time, while slightly delaying the delivery of the Diamond Princess. It was the second Princess Cruises
Princess Cruises
Princess Cruises is a British-American owned cruise line, based in Santa Clarita, California in the United States. Previously a subsidiary of P&O Princess Cruises PLC, the company is now one of ten cruise ship brands operated by Carnival Corporation & PLC and accounts for approximately 19% share...

 ship to be built in a Japanese shipyard and lacks the "wing" or "spoiler" across the rear (which can be seen on the Grand Princess
Grand Princess
Grand Princess is a Grand-class cruise ship owned by Princess Cruises. Built in 1998 by Fincantieri Cantieri Navali Italiani in Monfalcone , Italy, at a cost of approximately US$450 million, she was the largest and most expensive passenger ship ever built at the time...

.)

Princess Cruises
Princess Cruises
Princess Cruises is a British-American owned cruise line, based in Santa Clarita, California in the United States. Previously a subsidiary of P&O Princess Cruises PLC, the company is now one of ten cruise ship brands operated by Carnival Corporation & PLC and accounts for approximately 19% share...

 has announced that Sapphire Princess will be fitted with the "Movies Under the Stars" feature sometime in 2011.

Machinery

The diesel-electric plant consists of 4 diesel generators and a gas turbine generator. The diesel generators are Wärtsilä
Wärtsilä
Wärtsilä is a Finnish corporation which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include large combustion engines...

 46 series common rail engines, two of the straight 9 cylinder configuration, and two of the straight 8 cylinder configuration. The 8 and 9 cylinder engines can produce approximately 8 and 9 MW of power respectively. These engines are fueled with Heavy Fuel oil (HFO or bunker c) and Marine Gas Oil (MGO) depending on the local regulations regarding emissions, as MGO produces much lower emissions but is much more expensive. The gas turbine generator is a GE 2500, producing a peak of 25 MW of power and being fueled my MGO. This generator is much more expensive to run than the diesel generators, and is used mostly in areas, such as Alaska, where the emissions regulations are strict. It is also used when top speed is required to make it to a port in a short time period.
There are two propulsion electric motors which drive fixed-pitch propellers and 6 thrusters used during maneuvering; 3 bow and 3 stern. The propulsion electric motors (PEMs), are conventional synchronous motors made by Alston Motors. The two motors are each rated to 20 MW and have a maximum speed of 154 rpm. (Rated speed of 0-145 rpm.)

Whale impact

On July 25, 2009 the ship docked at Canada Place
Canada Place
Canada Place is a building situated on the Burrard Inlet waterfront of Vancouver, British Columbia. It is the home of the Vancouver Convention Centre, the Pan Pacific Hotel, Vancouver's World Trade Centre, and the world's first permanent IMAX 3D theatre . The building's exterior is covered by...

 Terminal, in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, Canada, with a dead Fin Whale
Fin Whale
The fin whale , also called the finback whale, razorback, or common rorqual, is a marine mammal belonging to the suborder of baleen whales. It is the second longest whale and the sixth largest living animal after the blue whale, bowhead whale, and right whales, growing to nearly 27 metres long...

 lodged on its bow. The 70 feet (21.3 m) whale was found on top of the bulbous bow
Bulbous bow
A bulbous bow is a protruding bulb at the bow of a ship just below the waterline. The bulb modifies the way the water flows around the hull, reducing drag and thus increasing speed, range, fuel efficiency, and stability...

. Preliminary reports from the Fisheries and Oceans
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, frequently referred to as DFO , is the department within the government of Canada that is responsible for developing and implementing policies and programs in support of Canada's economic, ecological and scientific interests in oceans and inland waters...

 necropsy suggest the whale might have been sick.

The last time that an Alaskan cruise ship docked in Vancouver with a whale on its bow was in 1999, when a dead 20 metres (65.6 ft) Fin whale was found on the MV Galaxy
MV Galaxy
MV Mein Schiff 1 is a Century class cruise ship owned and operated by TUI Cruises. She was built in 1996 at the Meyer Werft shipyard in Papenburg, Germany as MV Galaxy for Celebrity Cruises, and renamed Celebrity Galaxy in 2008...

.

On July 28, 2010 Sapphire Princess had a stuck whale on the bow of the ship. The 40-ft long whale became entangled on the ships bulbous bow while Sapphire Princess was sailing from Ketchikan to Juneau.

External links

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