The keel laying ceremony for the first block of the new cruise ship for the German shipping company AIDA Cruises, AIDAnova, was held yesterday, September 6, at MEYER WERFT building dock.
This is the first vessel of Carnival Corporation in a new series of extremely environmentally friendly liners with reduced emissions.
The first steel block (of altogether 90 blocks) for the newbuild weighs about 120 tonnes. It is approx. 5 m wide, 8.20 m high and 21 m long. A traditional lucky cent was placed under by the trainees Martin de Boer (MEYER WERFT) and Louisa Tröbner (AIDA).
AIDAnova is the first of 2 new vessels for AIDA brand. Carnival Corp. has ordered another 5 liners in Papenburg and Turku. The ships with a volume of over 183,900 GT and capacity for over 2,500 cabins each will be reinforcing the fleet of AIDA at the end of 2018 and 2021.
The modern power plant of AIDAnova was constructed at NEPTUN WERFT in Warnemunde and is powered by 4 innovative, low-emission LNG engines by Caterpillar for shipping and hotel operations.
In autumn 2018 the newbuild will leave MEYER WERFT for the North Sea. Then it will be handed over to the company following a period of thorough trials.