Damen is seeing growing project scopes and has ships scheduled up to 2030 according to the 2023 Drydock and Refurbishment Report by Cruise Industry News.
“We have exact dates up to 2030 already,” said Rogier van der Laan, global product manager cruise maintenance and upgrade services at Damen.
“We are seeing bookings far out. There are three back-to-back ships scheduled in 2025, and one is an especially huge conversion,” van der Laan added.
Damen completed multiple projects in 2022 as well. Among 2022 highlights was the Emerald Princess drydocking in Rotterdam, the Seabourn Odyssey in Curacao as well as the Celebrity Xpedition, and the winter conversion of the Maasdam into the Renaissance for French start-up CFC.
The former Maasdam arrived at Damen’s Brest, France, facility in October, entered drydock in November and is scheduled to start sailing in the spring.
The yard will handle steel work, maintenance and more, and help interior contractors with logistics, container shipments and more.
“With the supply chain problems, logistics can be a challenge. For the yard, it’s not a problem, but getting supplies from the manufacturers can be a big issue and the price is going up everywhere,” he said.
Overall, van der Laan said the outlook was “very good” for the company’s yards, with its European facilities looking after ships of any size and its Curacao drydock perfectly suited for smaller ships and expedition ships moving between the polar regions.
Across the industry, van der Laan said that Tier III updates for ships would be a trend in coming years, allowing them to sail in sensitive areas.
Planning has tightened up with changing budgets and project scopes from cruise customers, meaning five to six months out instead of a year for a project plan.
“But we are flexible. It’s always changing,” van der Laan said. “There can be change orders or unforeseen steel work, and we can do that.”
