MS Regatta: Refreshed and ready to go

By Cindy Chan

The MS Regatta, an 824-passenger flagship of Oceania Cruises, underwent a large refit in September 2019 at Seaspan Vancouver Drydock in Lower Lonsdale in North Vancouver, but now it’s back in business.

According to Ad Bertens, director of business development for Seaspan Shipyards, the MS Regatta spends most of the summer periods here in the Northwest Pacific, with its home base in Seattle and Vancouver. The MS Regatta is 22 years old (built in 1998), which means the vessel has reached its half-life milestone. As a result, it was due for a refit. The construction included a total upgrade of the hotel area and mechanical equipment, and new hull coating system (silicone basis).

“All of the hotel rooms were stripped down to bare steel. All the furniture, wood work, flooring and bathrooms were taken out,” Bertens explains. “Specialized companies built everything with new materials brought in from all over the world. That was the reason we had 375 20-foot containers of materials in storage.”

Both propellers had been replaced, as they were 22 years old, by built-up propellers with new hydrodynamic design to improve fuel efficiency. Furthermore, built-up propellers are beneficial because if a propeller blade is damaged, the blade can just simply be removed underwater and replaced with a new one. Also, the stabilizers ave been completely overhauled.

The vessel came to Seaspan on Sept. 6, 2019, and was undocked on Sept. 22, 2019. Passengers boarded on Sept. 24 in Seattle for the next cruise.

“Normally with these types of projects, they have a very hard deadline,” Bertens says. “Passengers are booked for the next trip already. All of this work was done in 16 days in the yard.”

In the end, the MS Regatta received complete new interiors, complete new restaurants, new galleys, new propellers and a new coating system on the underwater hull. Bertens says the project was completed with 2,750 crane lifts on the ship with a total of five cranes.

“We took lots of old material away from the vessel,” he says. “Everything was packed in containers, lifted off from the vessels and brought to a recycling centre.”

Seaspan designed nine platforms before arrival of the vessel to connect to the ship in order to improve the logistic process for offloading of old materials and bringing on the new materials for building up the hotel area again.

“We did 2,750 crane lifts with five cranes. We had 375 20-foot containers here in storage, and we had 1,750 workers helping us,” Bertens says, adding that another cruise ship was used as an accommodation ship for the 1,750 employees to sleep in.

“We were not able to find 1,750 hotel rooms,” Bertens adds with a laugh. “It was a very interesting project for Seaspan Vancouver Drydock. As a result of this project, Vancouver Drydock has proven the ability to take on these types of large, logistic projects and to deliver them on time and within budget. Vancouver Drydock has generated more work in the (expedition) cruise industry over 2019, with drydocking of my Roald Amundsen (first hybrid-powered vessel crossing the Northwest Passage Crossing) and my Silver Explorer."