Opinion: The case for renovating mature liners

Remember the Toyota Prius?

Japan’s hybrid family car was supposedly designed to massage the trees and save the earth. Brainwashed drivers were manipulated into believing the battery-petrol-composite was akin to automotive Jesus, and if you didn’t opt to purchase one, then Mother Nature would destroy us all.

If you owned an older car, you had to adapt or be judged by socialites from the bowels of the Waitrose carpark.

Yet, with that sanctimonious brain fog cleared by time’s onward march, the Prius can now be viewed as God intended – a cynical marketing exercise driving revenue from an implanted sense of historical shame. A huge number of car manufacturers and other industries have since followed suit.

Now, it seems that Prius-syndrome is in danger of creeping across the cruise industry. There’s a polarising vibe where older cruise ships become easy targets for the eco-mob; brandishing their opinions like a weapon and spearheading notions that freshly constructed cruise ships are kinder to the environment, whereas older vessels remain akin to poison.

Others point to research that showcases how ferociously new ships have pillaged the soil for materials, torturing the earth in the process and harming the atmosphere. Renovating an older vessel, they claim, saves all that mayhem and pollution.

Prolonging the lifespan of a ship that’s already been created, and installing a modern, emissions-conscious power plant to match contemporary regulations therefore makes perfect sense. It’s the best of both worlds.

So – what’s the deal?

Green cruising: No longer an oxymoron

Let’s take a quick step back to the Prius. Environmental proclamation over the vehicle sold units that, arguably, caused more destruction than any long-lasting classic car ever could.

From looting the earth of battery-necessary minerals to short-lived vehicular lifespans that failed to counteract large Co2 production footprints, Mother Nature was effectively tormented, rather than cradled by a new generation of clean motorists.

Yet, modern society rarely has time for the luxury of outrage, and instead progressed towards the next environmental fad – ‘green cruising’. An oxymoron? Only if you judge the book by its cover.

The cruise industry has long been lampooned by environmentalists as a cacophony of habitat-abusing toxins and bad attitudes. Cruise lines have been pushed into cleaning up their act courtesy of a changing world, fronted by studies from Friends of the Earth (FOE).

Announcing a ban on plastic straws and following baseline sustainability practices isn’t enough to appease the climate-watching proletariat anymore. Aggressive decarbonisation goals, cleaner alternative fuels, greener port-based infrastructures and technological advancement remain the order of the day. According to the likes of UN research, only ships built to modern regulations can possibly achieve those targets.

Keyboard warriors and inconsequential socialites may pupate with that misjudgment, but we’d argue that it’s one big misconception. All those voices that sneer and mock the decision to keep an older vessel up-to-date completely misinterpret society’s infatuation with ‘new is greener’.

Just like production of the God-forsaken Prius, crafting a new vessel from the keel up is not just heavy on time and cost, but also on resources. More than 25,000 tonnes of steel are required for the construction of a mid-sized cruise ship, calling for raw materials to be extracted from the earth by carbon-spewing mine operations.

It’s a dirty business. Experts suggest that cruise ships need to remain operational for more than 40 years before that carbon sting becomes offset.

Few realistically sail long enough to hit that mark, as ships are dispatched to the breaker’s yard and orders are placed for brand-new examples; all when renovation and upcycling remains more than possible.

The case for renovation

Upcycling used to be a dirty word, but thanks to efforts from the likes of Ambassador Cruise Line, the term has enjoyed a renaissance. Start-up cruise lines over the last century typically renovated older ships to avoid catastrophic financial outlays, but there was a stigma attached.

Aspirational travellers would snort at the concept of sailing aboard a repurposed vessel. That wasn’t the image of travel that old money found alluring.

To capture paying guests who would book a cabin multiple times per year – rather than pre-war immigrants on a one-way trip to promised lands in search of fortune – ships had to be new or famously established. Perfectly useable liners became victims of society. Out with the old, and in with the new. To hell with the environment.

That was then. This is now, and the tourism landscape has shifted towards environmentally-friendly holidaymakers, rather than snobbery-based outriggers of class. Repurposing a mature ship now presents merit rather than dishonour. Nick Hughes, chief operating officer at Ambassador Cruise Line, can attest to that.

He told us: “Huge amounts of resources and materials go into a new build and we are very happy to reduce, reuse and recycle excellent existing ships and make them fit for modern emission standards.”

“We know that our guests enjoy the size and layout of more traditional ships and these also give us great opportunities to visit a wider range of port destinations. Why use even more resources while there are excellent options already available?”

Then there’s the benefit of time scale. Crafting a cruise ship from scratch takes years of planning and construction. While Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 was officially ordered in November 2000, the maiden voyage wouldn’t occur until January 2004.

Ambassador’s revamped Ambition (originally built as MS Mistral in 1999) went from planning in May 2022 to her maiden voyage only one year later, cutting the schedule by almost 66 percent. Not to mention avoiding the subsequent carbon output of opting for a new build.

Although it would be impolite to ask for exact figures, we reckon the cost of renovation was far less than ordering a fresh craft. When we asked Hughes, he simply responded “Indeed”. That says it all, really.