Viking Vela

[photopro2]

Some details of Viking's latest ship, the Vela, have now been revealed on their website. Here is a summary of what we know so far.

 

The ship is 39 feet longer and 7 feet wider in the beam than the current fleet and will carry 68 more passengers. The deck plans suggest that most of the additional length results from changes to the rear section of the ship, with the addition of extra cabins and extensions to the main restaurant and world café. The extra width produces a small increase in the floor area of cabins. Previous reports have also indicated that the ship will have the capacity to use hydrogen propulsion in ecologically sensitive locations.

 

The first sailing currently shown on the Viking website is the In Search of the Northern Lights itinerary leaving Tilbury on the 10th of January 2025, although cruises prior to this date may well be announced in due course.

 

With thanks to @CharTrav and their amazing thread for the head's up on this news.

 

 

 

Edited June 5, 2023 by photopro2
Typo

[CharTrav]

2 hours ago, photopro2 said:

Some details of Viking's latest ship, the Vela, have now been revealed on their website. Here is a summary of what we know so far.

 

The ship is 39 feet longer and 7 feet wider in the beam than the current fleet and will carry 68 more passengers. The deck plans suggest that most of the additional length results from changes to the rear section of the ship, with the addition of extra cabins and extensions to the main restaurant and world café. The extra width produces a small increase in the floor area of cabins. Previous reports have also indicated that the ship will have the capacity to use hydrogen propulsion in ecologically sensitive locations.

 

The first sailing currently shown on the Viking website is the In Search of the Northern Lights itinerary leaving Tilbury on the 10th of January 2025, although cruises prior to this date may well be announced in due course.

 

With thanks to @CharTrav and their amazing thread for the head's up on this news.

 

 

 

Thanks! I've updated the spreadsheet with Vela's still developing schedule but haven't posted it to Dropbox yet. Waiting a week or so just in case her schedule grows, which it really must. And btw - despite my profile picture - there's only one author behind CharTrav -  the woman holding the mug. 😎

Edited June 5, 2023 by CharTrav

[Jim Avery]

That's the history of modern cruise ships.  Get a design that works fairly well and add more cabins so as to cram more butts in seats.  That alone makes this ship less attractive to me. More is often less in the cruise industry.

[CharTrav]

2 hours ago, Jim Avery said:

That's the history of modern cruise ships.  Get a design that works fairly well and add more cabins so as to cram more butts in seats.  That alone makes this ship less attractive to me. More is often less in the cruise industry.

I don't think that's the case here. From what I've read - only 2 ships will be built using this design. 

[duquephart]

When are they going to go the casino route? Isn't that inevitable?

[photopro2]

23 hours ago, CharTrav said:

there's only one author behind CharTrav

I like the new photo! 

 

In fact I chose the pronoun "they" because I was not sure if he or she would be appropriate. Now that you have confirmed that the person behind the detailed, comprehensive and well organised spreadsheet is a woman, that makes perfect sense. 👍 😁 

Edited June 6, 2023 by photopro2
Added emoji

[CCWineLover]

19 hours ago, duquephart said:

When are they going to go the casino route? Isn't that inevitable?

No.  Don't think they'll ever do that.

[duquephart]

Sooner or later they will notice the $$$$$ left on the table. Never underestimate greed.

[deec]

I wonder if being on the ship will feel any bigger.  18 square feet may help between the bed and the closet in the v/dv cabins.

 

[SailorPaulH]

On 6/5/2023 at 10:27 AM, Jim Avery said:

That's the history of modern cruise ships.  Get a design that works fairly well and add more cabins so as to cram more butts in seats.  That alone makes this ship less attractive to me. More is often less in the cruise industry.

I read somewhere this design was a result of incorporating a new hydrogen propulsion system - requiring a greater size - so that VO could maintain ships that would be allowed into UNESCO listed fjords in Norway when the new regulations come into effect. The same propulsion system is being tested on a smaller scale in the original design Viking Neptune.

 

But, yes, it does seem they took advantage of this design change to pack a few more people in.

[CharTrav]

2 hours ago, SailorPaulH said:

so that VO could maintain ships that would be allowed into UNESCO listed fjords in Norway when the new regulations come into effect.

I am aware of the new peopulsion system and that it necessitated a larger ship. Was not aware of this. Thanks for sharing!

[photopro2]

@FetaCheese spotted this article and posted the link in another thread.

https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/shipbuilding-refurb-equipment/10-more-viking-ocean-ships-2030-tad-bigger-and-some-china

 

It gives the reason for the increase in size from The Vela onwards being that "the newbuilds will be a tad bigger due to new IMO stability regulations"

 

I wonder if the Mariners on the board would like to comment on the stability difference between the current and new ships?

[Heidi13]

7 hours ago, photopro2 said:

@FetaCheese spotted this article and posted the link in another thread.

https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/shipbuilding-refurb-equipment/10-more-viking-ocean-ships-2030-tad-bigger-and-some-china

 

It gives the reason for the increase in size from The Vela onwards being that "the newbuilds will be a tad bigger due to new IMO stability regulations"

 

I wonder if the Mariners on the board would like to comment on the stability difference between the current and new ships?

 

I first heard about the small increase in size when onboard the Viking Sun back in 2020.

 

Being retired now for 10 yrs, I don't pay too much attention to SOLAS changes, so I don't know what changes are requiring the increased size. However, in general terms, increasing a ship's beam increases the Metacentric Height (GM) and Righting Lever (GZ), which is the force that returns a ship to the upright, when inclined.

 

All based on a similar distribution of weights.

[photopro2]

On 6/6/2023 at 4:32 PM, deec said:

I wonder if being on the ship will feel any bigger.

I was wondering about that too.

 

I am certainly no mathematician but I did a quick "back-of-a-napkin" calculation to roughly estimate if the new ships were likely to have any less space per passenger.

 

To keep things simple (for the purposes of the calculation) I imagined that both the new and old ship designs were simple rectangles. Of course, this does not give a genuine real life figure for the space on either ship, but I believe it should give an indication if the deck area per passenger on the new ships is likely to be more or less than on the current ones.

 

My calculation went as follows:

 

Current fleet size 745x94 feet = 70030 square feet divided by 930 passengers = 75.3 square feet per passenger.

 

New fleet size 784x101 feet = 79184 square feet divided by 998 passengers = 79.3 square feet per passenger.

 

So, my extremely rough and ready estimate would suggest that if anything (even with the extra passengers) there is likely to be about 5% more space for each of us on the new ships, rather than less 😁 

 

I hope my calculation makes sense and I have not missed something obvious. If anyone has a better way of making this estimation do let me know.

[formernuke]

Note that the website shows each of the cabins are a little larger

[CharTrav]

48 minutes ago, photopro2 said:

I was wondering about that too.

 

I am certainly no mathematician but I did a quick "back-of-a-napkin" calculation to roughly estimate if the new ships were likely to have any less space per passenger.

 

To keep things simple (for the purposes of the calculation) I imagined that both the new and old ship designs were simple rectangles. Of course, this does not give a genuine real life figure for the space on either ship, but I believe it should give an indication if the deck area per passenger on the new ships is likely to be more or less than on the current ones.

 

My calculation went as follows:

 

Current fleet size 745x94 feet = 70030 square feet divided by 930 passengers = 75.3 square feet per passenger.

 

New fleet size 784x101 feet = 79184 square feet divided by 998 passengers = 79.3 square feet per passenger.

 

So, my extremely rough and ready estimate would suggest that if anything (even with the extra passengers) there is likely to be about 5% more space for each of us on the new ships, rather than less 😁 

 

I hope my calculation makes sense and I have not missed something obvious. If anyone has a better way of making this estimation do let me know.

No need to do any estimations - the cabin sizes are provided on the VO site. I've also captured all that info in my ship class spreadsheet posted to Dropbox. Link to folder in my signature.  Also here (and the source for my spreadsheet) https://www.vikingcruises.com/oceans/ships/viking-vela.html

[Jim Avery]

But will the Explorers be much larger?  The Pool Deck?  Wintergreen?  Etc.  Very shifty things have happened on many lines when additional capacity has been added.  We will just have to wait and see.  I suspect a large portion of the increased volume will be consumed by the stability requirements and the new power supply spaces.  The increased beam should allow a bit more cabin space and maybe a bit wider passageways.  But additional passengers without new public spaces will inevitably feel more crowded.

Edited June 14, 2023 by Jim Avery

[Heidi13]

A common metric for comparing the spaciousness on a cruise ship is dividing the gross tonnage by the pax count.

 

Gross Tonnage is readily available for most ships and is a measure of the enclosed volume of a ship, at the ratio of 100 ft3 = 1 ton. A better metric would be Net Tonnage, which subtracts working spaces, crew spaces, etc. However, Net Tonnage is rarely available in the public domain.

 

The Gross Tonnage of the existing Ocean ships is 47,842, so with a pax capacity of 930, it provides a space ratio of 51.443. This is well above mainstream mega ships, which are often in the 30's, but below the North American "Luxury" brands, which are often in the 60's.

 

To determine the gross tonnage of the new ship, I searched extensively, but can find nothing at present. So, Photopro2 got me thinking about how to estimate the increased enclosed volume, by increasing the beam 7' and adding 39' to the length.

 

Here are my assumptions and calculations

 

1) Increasing the beam from 94.5' to 101.5' The 7' increase adds another 7.407% to the existing beam (7/94.5x100)

Using a simple linear increase, the GT increases 47,842x0.07407 = 3,544 GT

 

Therefore, without adding extra length, the additional beam would add 3,544 GT to the existing tonnage.

 

2) Increasing the length by 39'. Since the ship now has a beam of 101.5', each deck has a sq footage of 39' x 101.5' = 3,958.5 ft2

 

Since Gross Tonnage is a measure of inclosed volume, I made some assumptions on the height of each deck

  Keel to Dk A - 30' (draft 21' + dk a is about 9' above W/L)

  1, 2 (10') - 20'

  A,3 - 8 (9') - 63'

Therefore total height from keel to Dk 8 deckhead = 113'

 

Total volume of new length - 3,958.5 x 113 = 447,310 ft3

 

3) Gross Tonnage is based on enclosed volume, so outer decks don't count. Therefore, I am making an allowance for the open decks spaces on Dk 2, 7 & 8

  Dk 2 - 39x6x10 = 2,340 (assume 3' P&S)

  Dk 7 - 39x10x9 = 3,510 (assume 5' P&S)

  Dk 8 - 39x28x9 = 9,828 (assume 14' P&S)

  Total Open Dk Volume = 15,678

 

4) Volume of increased length is 447,310 - 15,678 = 431,632

 

5) Gross Tonnage is 100 ft3 = 1 ton

Therefore GT of increased length is 435,591/100 = 4,356

 

6) Projected GT of new ship = existing GT + GT of increased beam + GT increased length

 

47,842 + 3,544 + 4,316 = 55,702GT

 

7) With a projected Gross Tonnage of 55,702 and a pax count of 998, I estimate the pax/space ratio of the new ships to be 55.81, which is an improvement of about 8.5%.

 

However, I refer to my initial points that this isn't an exact science, as it depends on exactly where the increased length is being added. It appears to be the aft section, so while all cabins will be larger, I agree with Jim that the public spaces at the fwd end of the ship will be more crowded.

 

[Jim Avery]

Info like that is why you are our go to guy Andy.  Let me buy you a beer for all your good work..🍺

[Jim Avery]

I have been giving this some thought and wonder where the extra 34 cabins will go.  Unless they build a whole new deck space on the upper decks how could you add cabins to the existing layout without creating some inside cabins?  And adding cabins to upper decks would reduce the Sport Deck?  Cabins that high also affect stability which requires more hull space.  Just wondering how this will be done and still keep the feel of the "old" ships.

[LindaS272]

Here ya go for the deck plans:

https://www.vikingcruises.com/oceans/ships/viking-vela.html

[Jim Avery]

Thanks Linda I hadn't seen that yet.  Glad they are not adding an upper deck.  Managed to put 34 cabins on the existing pax decks using the extra length.  It will be interesting to see.  Still better than the Behemoth of the Seas....🍹

I will look for Andy's analysis of how much thinner each cabin will have to be..🍺

Edited June 14, 2023 by Jim Avery

[CCWineLover]

Spoke with Jordan Smith, cruise consultant on our current Saturn cruise.

he confirmed:

Star Class - 10 ships Star+3 triplets

each triplet roughly same features 

Star unique

Sea-Sun-Sky 

Jupiter-Orion-Venus (dropped the planetarium)

Mars-Neptune-Saturn

 

Vela class - 10 ships all the same design

1st one Nov 2024 is Vela

restaurants expanded 

2 extra rows in MDR, Manfredis and CT, and WC

planned to keep below 1000 passengers (998)

several on our cruise are booking the Vela now!!  

 

[OneSixtyToOne]

We were in aft DV1s 4122 and 4123 on our last two cruises. The new ship class now has them listed as 4130 and 4131.

[photopro2]

2 hours ago, Heidi13 said:

It appears to be the aft section, so while all cabins will be larger, I agree with Jim that the public spaces at the fwd end of the ship will be more crowded.

 

Wow Andy!!!! Thanks for that, a little better than my "back-of-the-napkin" estimate to say the least! I'm pleased that my schoolboy maths got to a figure that was somewhere in the ballpark, and that you've confirmed that there is likely to be more space per-passenger rather than less 😁

 

I believe I am correct in saying that there will be some increase in the floor area of all the public spaces, simply as a function of the increased beam and we still don't know exactly where the internal walls will be positioned within the volumes that you calculated.

 

The improvement in pax/space ratio suggests to me that Viking have "done the right thing" by not squeezing in the absolute maximum number of additional cabins that the increase in overall tonnage (if that is the right term?) would allow. Might it not be reasonable to assuming that, by repositioning internal walls, all of the public spaces have also been enlarged in proportion to the number of additional passengers?

Edited June 14, 2023 by photopro2
changed increased to enlarged