A LIMIT TO THE SIZE OF SHIPS
by Geoffrey Evans

It has been interesting to read in various shipping publications comment on the seemingly ever increasing size of merchant ships, in particular of passenger ships designed in the main for , cruising. Tankers and bulk cargo carriers have been growing in size 1 for many years, but they carry small crews and as they load I and unload at purpose-built ports and berths, are hardly noticed by most people: Big passenger ships are a different ~ matter altogether. ) To one who can recall the 'big' 28,000- 30,000 tonne ships ~ such as P&O's CANBERRA and HIMALAYA and the Orient Line's ORCADES (his favourite) and ORIANA, the scale of almost everything pertaining to the present generation of liners is quite staggering.
P&O-Princess Line's GRAND PRINCESS, for example, has a dwt of 108,806 tonnes, or three and a half times that of the group mentioned in the preceding paragraph, has 13 passenger decks including internal promenades and a garden on the upper deck (to remind travellers of home?), with all berths occupied 3,100 passengers can be embarked plus a crew of 1,100 - no doubt many of who would belong to the catering staff.
Marine craft have been growing in size throughout the ages and from a shipbuilders point of view there would not seem to be a limit; limits however, there are, such as the depth of water in straits, channels, harbours etc., able to accommodate deep draught vessels, facilities in ports and berths able to handle the human and inanimate contents of ships and the cost of such ships in the first place: The economic factors.
The International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is examining other factors, not least the safety aspects of the super-liners. Fire continues to be a major hazard in ships; collisions and groundings take place despite advances in electronic warning devices and communications.
Ever since the loss of the 47,000 tonne TITANIC and 1503 lives in 1912, passenger safety at sea has been a vital consideration of marine architects and shipbuilders; one might expect the new floating cities to create a few more headaches for both.