Windstar cuts the first steel at Italian shipyard Fincantieri as the innovative small ship cruise line’s
At Fincantieri’s shipyard “Arsenale Triestino San Marco”, in Trieste, Italy, John Gunner, Vice President of Expansion Projects for Seattle-based Windstar Cruises, pushed the button which activated the torch to make the first cut in the new steel that will become the first of three new ships sections as part of Windstar’s $250 Million Star Plus Initiative.
The $250 Million Star Plus Initiative is the most complex and comprehensive small ship lengthening, engine replacement, and renovation project undertaken in cruising. Windstar will take half of its entire fleet – Star Breeze, Star Legend, and Star Pride – and renovate each ship in succession. The work on the first of the three ships begins on Star Breeze in October 2019 and shall end with the departure of the Star Pride from the yard in November 2020. This steel cutting marks the beginning of true project construction. The popular ships will be cut in half to allow the installation of a new stepped mid-body section that will lengthen each vessel by approximately 25 meters. The total capacity of the “new” expanded ships will be 312 guests, and additional staff will be hired in order to maintain the line’s impressive 1.5 to 1 guest to service staff ratio.
The new sections will be built in Trieste and then will be transported south by barge to the Fincantieri yard in Palermo Sicily, Italy to be inserted into the iconic Windstar ships along with the new engines. The timeline requires the new sections to be fabricated from April through September, shipped in October, and then inserted into Star Breeze so that she can be completed in time for her arrival for re-inaugural activities at the port of Miami on March 19, 2020.
The extension and modernization project is being performed by the Ship Repair & Conversion part of the Services Division of Fincantieri, one of the world’s largest shipbuilding groups and number one for diversification and innovation that has built 89 cruise ships from 1990 to today with 54 new ships currently being designed or built in the group’s yards. The company also has a deeply rooted experience in cruise ship conversion, which consolidates its leadership in this highly specialized naval transformation sector.
