As Morski writes on the 17th of December, 2019, the processing of the steel for New Construction (Novogradnja) 485 has begun today in Split’s Brodosplit shipyard on the sheet metal cutting machine. This marks the beginning of the construction of a polar cruise ship contracted for the well known Dutch company Oceanwide Expeditions.
”The first ship is the pride of the shipyard, made during the restructuring and with new software tools. Namely, we’re the first in the niche of polar cruisers, in the class ”LR PC6” we came out with this boat, and it was made on time and in top quality and on budget, and this resulted in another order. This vessel’s completion is scheduled for the 2021 Arctic season. We plan to hand it over even earlier. The earnings on this ship should be about 10 percent of its value,” said Tomislav Debeljak, CEO of Brodosplit.
The ceremony was attended by Zvonimir Novak, Assistant Minister of Economy, and Ruđer Friganović, Director of Croatia’s Jadranbrod, as well as numerous contracting representatives and construction partners.
Following the handover of ”Hondius” back in May this year, a contract was signed at Brodosplit for the construction of another ship of the same dimensions, the so-called ”sister ship” for the same contracting authority, which gave the Dutch company the best possible opportunity to showcase their satisfaction with the quality of the work done in Brodosplit and the completion of the construction of the contracted ships within their prescribed deadlines.
”When we decided to build a ship like this, no shipyard in the Netherlands or Germany could give me a guarantee that the ship would be completed within the time limit we wanted. Because of this, we contacted the management of the Brodosplit shipyard, which accepted our construction deadlines and guaranteed that the ship would be completed on time. And they did all that was agreed.
It isn’t easy to build a ship like this, but with the cooperation of our team of experts and experts from the Split shipyard, the ship was built within the agreed deadline. That’s why I decided that we’d build another ship in Split,” stated Wijnand van Gessel, the owner of Oceanwide Expeditions back during the handover in May.
Make sure to follow our dedicated Made in Croatia page for much more.
