STX France’s groundbreaking collaboration with Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Edge

STX France has launched an ongoing monitoring services programme with Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Edge

STX France and Royal Caribbean have launched a partnership that allows ongoing monitoring by the shipyard to ensure energy efficient solutions are in optimal use on Harmony of the Seas. This is also to be rolled out to the Celebrity Cruises’ Edge-class vessels being built by the shipyard, and other ships in Royal Caribbean Cruises’ fleet.

The groundbreaking collaboration on Harmony of the Seas – which has not been carried out between a shipyard and cruise ship operator before – has led to 5% fuel savings on the cruise ship, which was delivered last year. The monitoring agenda has its foundations in STX France’s Ecorizon, a research and development programme launched in 2007 to create more environmentally friendly and energy efficient ships.

STX France Ecorizon R&D project manager and energy efficiency manager for Harmony of the Seas and Celebrity Edge-class, Arnaud Jacques told Passenger Ship Technology “We took this approach to help Royal Caribbean reach the best energy efficiency level possible. Normally the work of a shipyard stops after delivery but we believe that it is very crucial to share all this knowledge and expertise we have built up.”

He said this is what propelled STX France to go further than the usual scope of shipbuilder to deliver not just a ship that was “designed well but one designed to operate well”.

The monitoring services sees STX France following the ship year after year and see what works, what does not work as expected and looking at what can be improved (in terms of energy efficiency). A very important part of it is to train the crew how to check equipment and maintain the level of knowledge about how the ship works and maintain best practice. This is especially important as crews change frequently. The training takes place twice a year. STX France also gives Royal Caribbean weekly updates and analysis on the back of its monitoring services.

Mr Jacques said “We plan to continue co-operation with Royal Caribbean next year following other ships; they want to have a great benchmark for their fleet and make sure the ships run at an optimal energy performance.” He wasn’t able to say at this stage which ships these would be.

Celebrity Cruises’ Celebrity Edge will also undergo the same monitoring services when it is delivered at the end of 2018.