China’s first home-grown large cruise liner, regarded as a breakthrough in the nation’s shipbuilding and high-end manufacturing, left its dock in Shanghai after nearly four years of construction to start sea trials. Adora Magic City, a 135,500-ton liner built by Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding – a subsidiary of the state-owned China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) – represents a significant technological advancement for China, being the last type of high-end ship that the country had yet to produce. The 323-meter-long ship is expected to be delivered by the end of the year. Adora Magic City will make two trial trips in July and August, Waigaoqiao confirmed.
“Previously, large cruise ships were nearly exclusively made in Europe, and the entire industry chain is located there. Now, with the first domestically made cruise liner, scientific institutions in China have started developing our own parts,” Yang Xin, Deputy Director of Waigaoqiao’s Cruise Project Department, said during CCTV’s live broadcast of the ceremony. “Through the making of this very first large cruise ship, we hope to build a whole industrial system and cultivate a cruise culture.” According to Zheng Yiming, Director of the Statistics Department at the China Association of the National Shipbuilding Industry, the luxury cruise liner’s completion shows that China has the ability to build all types of complex, high-value-added ships, giving it an edge over South Korea, its major competitor in shipbuilding. But China still needs to improve building efficiency and the quality of supporting facilities, as more ships of its kind – representing the highest level in passenger vessels – are expected to be constructed, he added.
The project was launched in 2015 when one of China’s state-owned shipbuilding conglomerates, now merged into the China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC), signed a deal with British-American cruise operator Carnival. The ship, which can accommodate up to 5,246 passengers, will travel to Japan and Southeast Asia. It will be the world’s first cruise liner that provides access to 5G internet, and it has the largest duty-free shop. Large cruise ships, most of which have been made by European shipyards, are dubbed one of the “three pearls on the crown of shipbuilding”, with the other two being aircraft carriers and liquefied natural gas (LNG) vessels. “They respectively represent the highest levels in ships carrying passengers, military equipment, and cargo. And now we have experience in building them all,” Zheng added.
The ship is also an important part of China’s efforts to boost its high-end manufacturing sector following the expansion of its high-speed railway network and the maiden flight of its domestically developed passenger jet, the C919. Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding started construction of China’s second large cruise liner in August, which will be 17.4 meters longer and have 19 more guest rooms. It is expected to be delivered in 2025, the South China Morning Post reports.
The China Daily added that the large cruise ship consists of 136 systems, more than 20,000 sets of equipment, 25 million components and parts, 4,200 kilometers of cable, 350 km of pipelines and 450 km of air pipes sourced from more than 500 global suppliers, according to CSSC. According to Lin Guolong, Director of the Shanghai Maritime University’s Logistics Research Center, building large cruise vessels is seen in the shipbuilding industry as one of the most challenging tasks. Yang Guobing, Chairman of CSSC Cruise Technology Development Co, said that “in order to build this ‘magic city’ on the sea, we have cultivated project management capabilities to deal with huge and complex systems, established an independent cruise operation team, and promoted the localization of multiple core systems such as IT, interior decoration and cruise supply”.
