The keel laying ceremony for the sixth of eight ocean cruise ships Viking has ordered from Fincantieri, took place at the shipyard in Ancona, the company said in its press release.
The first building block of the ship is about 11 meters long, 28.8 wide and weighing about 380 tons.
The unit, whose delivery is scheduled in 2019, will be placed in the small cruise ship segment. As its sister ships, it will have a gross tonnage of about 47,800 tons, 473 cabins with accommodation for 946 passengers, with a total capacity of over 1,400 people, including the crew.
The Viking units are all built according to the latest navigation regulations and equipped with the most modern safety systems, including the “Safe return to port”. Furthermore, they feature the most advanced technologies for energy saving and for meeting the strictest environmental regulations with energy-efficient engines and an exhaust gas cleaning system.
The first of the series, “Viking Star”, has been built at the shipyard in Marghera and delivered in March 2015. The second, the third and the fourth, “Viking Sea”, “Viking Sky” and “Viking Sun” took the sea from the shipyard in Ancona in 2016 and in 2017, where a few weeks ago “Viking Orion”, the fifth unit, has been launched with delivery scheduled in 2018. The last three units, including the one whose first building block was laid today, will be ready respectively in 2019, 2021 and 2022.
Fincantieri has built 79 cruise ships from 1990 to today (56 from 2002), while other 32 are currently being designed or built in the Group’s yards.