Meyer Turku starts Mardi Gras hull assembly

Mardi Gras will be first cruise ship to feature a roller coast ride

A keel laying ceremony held at the Meyer Turku shipyard in Finland yesterday marked the start of the hull assembly of what will the first LNG fueled cruise ship to serve the North American market, Carnival Cruise Line’s Mardi Gras.

In keeping with maritime tradition, the proceedings were highlighted by the placing of coins on top of the keel blocks.

FLOATING ENGINE ROOM

In fact, a major element of the assembly of the ship began in May with the arrival of a 140 meter long x 42 m wide floating engine room unit (FERU) from another Meyer shipyard, Neptun Werft, in Rostock, Germany.

Equipped with the ship’s LNG burning engines and LNG fuel tanks, this is the eleventh FERU produced by Neptun Werft and the second with LNG engines and tanks.

CARNIVAL’S LARGEST EVER

The180,000 gt, 5,200 passenger Mardi Gras will be Carnival Cruise’s largest ever ship and will be packed with innovations, including BOLT, the first roller coaster to be installed on a cruise ship.

At the heart of the vessel is Grand Central, a large open three-deck space for entertainment and relaxing that features a floor-to-ceiling glass frontage, in itself a complex design and engineering achievement

We have been very excited to design and now finally to start assembling Mardi Gras. All these different features onboard require a lot of engineering and design expertise which we have been happy to provide to our customer

Jan Meyer, CEO of Meyer Turku

Meyer Werft says that Mardi Gras is already benefiting from the shipyard’s approximately $225 million investment program. The steel halls at the shipyard are going through a major rebuilding with new machines and IT-systems, and new shipbuilding processes are being implemented with newly trained employees.

“We are seeing the benefits already and will continue to see more benefits later this year,” says CEO Jan Meyer. “Our automated steel pre-treatment facility and storage have been up and running for some time now and supporting the steel construction of Mardi Gras.”.

Mardi Gras is set to debut in Europe Aug. 31, 2020, then reposition to New York for a series of voyages before shifting to Port Canaveral, Fla., for year-round Caribbean departures.