2 minute read
It’s Marco’s solo role leading the Muse crew
GEOFFREY THOMAS speaks with the man in command
Capt. Marco Sangiacomo bounds up to greet me with a warm and firm handshake. “Delighted to meet, please have a seat.”
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Marco has done it all and then some.
After nautical college he spent a number of years in the Italian Navy before moving to commercial shipping, where he spent 12 years on cargo and container ships. “I rose to the rank of chief mate,” said Marco, who insists on me using his first name.
“Then I decided my career needed a sharp turn and through some of my friends who were with Silversea, they told me to try out for Silversea. I applied and was hired in 2000 and then went through the steps of the career with Silversea. I became captain in 2004 and have served as captain on almost all of the classic Silversea ships. I haven’t done the Silver Moon and the Silver Dawn.”
Marco was assigned to the Silver Muse when it was commissioned in 2017.
The ship has a tonnage of 40,791 gross tonnage, while carrying 596 passengers in 298 cabins and 411 crew members in 262 cabins.
Of those crew, about 154, or 38 per cent, are “back of house”, which includes 36 engineering and 65 galley staff as well as 36 deckhands.
While most officers are European, there are about 50 nationalities among the crew, requiring officers to be multilingual.
This diversity strengthens the cruise line’s international focus.
Marco explains that the crew are very content and that is reflected in the fact that the cruise line has the highest retention in the industry at 65 per cent, with many 10year plus crew members.
The crew told us that they had excellent quarters, with senior staff all having their own cabins. The captain and officers work a threemonth on/off roster, senior crew four months on, two months off, and junior crew six months on, two months off.
Marco waxes lyrical about the ship: “This one, I have to say, takes the sea very well and is very quiet. And even when the sea is rough the ship is quiet with little vibration.”
Marco explains that the Silver Muse is fitted out with the very latest in electronics that track every vessel around the ship and its course, and any conflicts. Even the small fishing vessels are tracked.
The Silver Muse has power in spades — or propeller blades. Marco explains that the four electrical generators are the heart of the ship with a backup 440volt threephase generator.
Propulsion comes from two 8500kW, 152rpm Wartsila dieselelectric engines, two 1000kW fourblade bow thrusters, and one 1500kW fourblade stern thruster. These thrusters enable Marco and his crew to turn the Silver Muse around in its own length of 212m.
Marco and his crew have the right stuff: friendly yet efficient and smiles all round.
