Original subtitles

(gentle music)

Palermo, Sicily.

In this port city,

a titan in the world of the shipbuilding industry,

is changing the face of the cruise business.

Here at one of the biggest dry docks

in the Mediterranean, cruise ships are literally put

under the knife.

Some of the biggest vessels

on the sea are cut in 1/2 and lengthened

with an entirely new section,

undergoing a new and complex process called jumboisation.

(upbeat music)

(upbeat music)

Palermo, Sicily, buzzes with the intoxicating mix

of cultures that as a result of its domination

by the Greek, Roman, Arab, and Spanish civilizations

over the last 3000 years.

Famous for the influence of Mafia gangsters,

it's also heralded across the globe

for its beautiful beaches, breathtaking scenery,

and complex history.

Palermo is not only a well visited location for tourists,

it is a major Italian trading port.

Dawn rises at the construction site

where Fincantieri engineers and ship experts

are hard at work moving tens

of thousands of metric tons with near laser precision.

We're cutting a ship that's 28 meters wide

with a height of 50 meters from the bottom to deck 11

with the tolerance of just a few millimeters.

Overall, the Fagioli's skid shoe system

has raised 15,000 metric tons.

After the enlargement of the ship,

she will have an added capacity of about 500 passengers.

(upbeat music)

Making even bigger ships is big business.

This construction site is owned and operated by Fincantieri

which builds some of the largest ships across the globe.

Fincantieri is in the business of constructing cruise ships,

barges and military vessels.

Here in Palermo,

the company has pioneered a ship recycling program

to meet demand for bigger and bigger vessels

for the lucrative cruise industry.

In the process,

they have created a thriving new market for upgraded ships.

The Renaissance program is a massive engineering project,

the lengthening of four ships

for a Mediterranean shipping company, MSC.

Each of these four ships, the MSC Armonia, Sinfonia,

Opera, and Lirica are undergoing the jumboisation process

due to be completed by the end of 2015.

The Repairs and Enlargement Division

that does what you can see behind me

is just one of the divisions of Fincantieri.

(upbeat music)

The ship yards here in Palermo

have got the technique down to a fine art.

The tools used to lengthen the ship once cut in 1/2

are massive movers.

Skid shoes, alike a hydraulic train

that moves along steel rails

on which the carriages are pushed horizontally

by hydraulic leavers acting on the sleepers.

The skid shoes system is computer controlled

and powered by diesel fuel packs.

Each unit has the capacity to lift

more than 1000 metric tons.

These particular skid shoes are a brand new design

by the Fagioli Engineering Department.

Before the jumboisation process in the Palermo docks,

Fagioli delivered into the yard no less than 22 skid shoes

and built three rails to hold the wide hull

of the cruise liner as it was being cut in two.

The weight of the front 1/2 of the ship

is supported by vertical cylinders

and each skid shoe is able to support 1000 tons.

Getting the ship resting on skid shoes, however,

involved a lengthy preparatory process.

(water gashing)

First, the dry dock had to be emptied using massive pumps.

The operation took a whole day.

Once the dry dock was empty,

the skid shoes on which the ship's hull would rest

and then be pulled apart once sliced through

had to be positioned at the bottom of the dock,

and the electrical parts removed

before the dock was flooded.

(calm music)

The amazing process of jumboisation starts with the creation

of the new segment of the ship that has to be positioned

in such a way that on the big day,

the whole process goes according to plan.

(machines revving)

In May, 2015, the Fincantieri yard successfully floated

a new segment that was to be used to lengthen

the MSC cruise liner, Opera.

The new segment, specially built to lengthen the ship,

was first ceremonially floated,

proving that it would contribute

to the buoyancy of the length and ship,

and then positioned in the dock

where the massive Opera was to rest

for the time of its complex,

high-tech lengthening surgery.

(upbeat music)

Filippo Oddo is the Fincantieri yard Director,

and has been working on the jumboisation

of ships in Palermo, Sicily for decades.

This dry dock has a capacity of 400,000 cubic meters.

It's one of the biggest in the Mediterranean sea.

To give you an idea,

it surfaces four football pitches and length.

It allows us to do this process that we're doing

because it is wide enough, as I've said before,

to allow the new section to be moved next to the ship.

If it were narrower, we could not do this.

This is the reason why we use the stock

in the past as well for this kind of operation.

(upbeat music)

Once all was ready,

the dock could be filmed again,

slowly, So as not to move the skid shoes.

As soon as the dock was full,

the massive cruise ship could be sailed in.

It was carefully positioned over the skid shoes

and the dry dock was emptied once more.

The ship and the new segment slowly sank

to the bottom of the dock and the ship rested snugly

on the skid shoes that would become its operating table.

(speaking in foreign language)

The first thing we did in the dock

before the ship arrived at the dry dock

was to put the skid shoes in place,

that's before the ship arrived.

At that point, the dock was flooded.

So the skid shoes were submerged underwater.

Thanks to this, the ship could be sailed

into the dock and positioned onto the skid shoes

as the dock was emptied.

At this point once it was settled,

the dock was completely emptied of water until dry.

(speaking in foreign language)

(upbeat music)

This is an operation

that has been done many times in these yards,

a specialty developed here since the 1980s.

The Palermo yards has a lot of experience.

The first enlargement process was done in 1980

to lengthen the Ville D'anvers.

And over the years, we have done several others.

This enlargement process of the MSC Opera

is the 27th operation in this series.

The next will be applied to the last of the four MSC ships

in the Renaissance program with the MSC Lirica.

It will close the cycle of the enlargement of MSC ships.

(upbeat music)

The MSC Opera is 251.25 meters long

and 28.8 meters wide.

And when fully operational, hosts 2,199 passengers,

offering 878 cabins and suites, luxury bars,

a theater, a casino, shops, and many other attractions.

With a new segment slaughtered into the middle,

the capacity will increase to 2,700 passengers,

which means that the ship will have to carry more food

and offer yet more services.

It is just one of the hundreds of massive cruise ships

that grace the ocean waves offering vacations to a market

of 22.2 million people with a turnover of $39.6 billion.

It is a growing tourism segment,

but not without its own safety issues.

(soft music)

On the 13th of January, 2012

the giant cruise ship, Costa Concordia, crashed

into the rocks of the Island of Gilio

in the Tuscan Archipelago, leading not only

to the world's largest ever ship salvage operation,

but also to criminal and civil trials in which the safety

of these mega ships was questioned.

American lawyer, John Eaves,

was one of the most outspoken critics

of the cruise industry.

This industry has continued to just grow

bigger and bigger and bigger.

Costa Concordia is not even the largest ship.

The largest ship is a 6,000 passenger vessel.

The problem here is that these ships are top heavy.

They do this for profit because they know

that they can sell a balcony space

for much more than they can sell a space

under or below the waterline.

However, Fincantieri ship builders say tests

on the structural integrity of the ships

they have stretched prove that these ships

are not weakened by jumboisation.

(speaking in foreign language)

Safety is not an issue in ship lengthening.

The lengthened ship has to satisfy strength criteria

and resistance distresses that it will encounter

during its life at sea, exactly like any other ship.

So from the resistance point of view, it makes no difference

whether this is a lengthened ship or a ship originally built

with these dimensions.

(speaking in foreign language)

(gentle music)

Fincantieri has just delivered

one of the 10 largest cruise ships

in the world to its client's, Princess Cruises.

The Regal Princess and other massive liners regularly come

off the production line of these types of shipyards

around Italy, from Trieste to Palermo.

If you were to compare the construction work we do here

at the Palermo site with the construction of new ships,

the first thing you would notice is the timing.

To construct a new ship from the very beginning

to when it's ready to take

to the sea with passengers would take at least

two and 1/2 years here.

Here we estimate, even when taking into consideration

the work of engineers, that we can finish the ship

in nine months.

The jumboisation process cuts down on costs,

resources and the years of labor

that it would take to build new cruise ships.

The current series of four cruise ships

that Fincantieri is working on

will cost 200 million euros when complete.

That's just a fraction

of the cost of building a single new cruise ship

like the Regal Princess

which carries a price tag of up to a billion euros.

(bright upbeat music)

Stretching an already massive liner

takes equally huge lifting and pulling machines.

This is the MSC Opera,

one of the finest cruise ships to sail the seas,

built in 2003 in Marseille, France.

That just 10 years after launch,

she is ready to be lengthened to host

yet more passengers, is an indication

of how fast the cruise industry is growing.

She is about ready to go

under the knife here in the Palermo dry dock.

Engineers and technicians are tightening the cables

and positioning the skid shoes that hold there in place,

as preparations get underway.

She is about 250 meters long.

And after it's all finished with the lengthening process,

she will be about 275 meters long.

The new section is about 25 meters long.

The beam remains the same, of course,

and is about 29 meters.

(upbeat music)

The MSC Opera is 59,058 gross tons,

which refers not to its real weight,

but to its cargo transport capacity,

and so it's potential commercial value,

while the ship's dry weight is the weight

that the skid shoes have to lift and carry.

Transport company, Fagioli, supplied Fincantieri

with skid shoes and trailers to do this heavy lift job.

The team on site is led by Loris Giovannini.

The skid shoe system combines both lifting and transport.

The lifting function is done with hydraulic jacks

which take on the vertical weight

and are therefore able to provide vertical lift.

The skid shoes also have another hydraulic system

that allows them to apply a horizontal sliding action.

(upbeat music)

Once settled in the dry dock,

the engineers ordered to be cut in two and prepared

for the new midship block to be inserted.

The new segment was built

in the Fincantieri yards over the past five months,

so as to keep the Opera working on the cruise routes

while it waited for its mega stretch.

Building a new chunk of shift to add

to a vessel that was not built here was problematic.

But before Fincantieri could begin construction

on a new mid section, they had to be absolutely sure

of the ship's measurements and specifications.

For this, they had to go back to the original plans

and technical documents of the ship.

(upbeat music)

Andrew Toso is the Project Manager

in Fincantieri's Palermo site.

He is looking over the vessel's technical documents

to be absolutely sure

of its measurements and specifications.

He oversees the logistics

behind the massive jumboisation operation,

and makes sure that things run smoothly

with over 100 workers on the job.

The operation starts with the examination

of technical documents that were made by the ship builder.

This is the ship that wasn't constructed

initially by Fincantieri.

So we have to ask the ship's owner

for the technical documents in order to start the project.

Obviously, before the ship arrives,

the construction site has already completed construction

of the ship's new section.

And this new section is completed

in every way, the ventilation system,

the electrical wires, the cabins, the bathroom boxes.

It will be completely finished

so that in the end, all we will need to do

is connect the forward and rear faces of the new segment.

(speaking in foreign language)

Only once we've seen the documents

can we start our part of the project.

So on the basis of those documents,

we've shaped our project,

but before we can begin constructing the new section.

And as we've said, tolerances can be compared

to a single blade of grass against a whole football pitch.

We can't just sort of guess or hope

that the original plans are sufficiently precise

and don't need to be verified before construction.

So once we've put together the preliminary documents,

we go on board to carry out final checks

to validate the initial data,

and only then can we put together the whole project.

(upbeat music)

The new section was fitted

with all the necessary specifications

so that the ship would be continuous from bow to stern.

The new section was 25 meters long.

Each ship gets a custom made segment to insert.

It's not just the metal plates, beams and frames

that need to be cut.

A cruise ship like the Opera is connected together

by a maze of electric wires, hydraulics, plumbing

and ventilation ducts that need to be sliced and rebuilt.

In addition to cutting the beams and decks of the ship

and the whole of the ship,

all the wires that run throughout the ship

are cut on the same line.

The electrical wires will need to be reconnected

so as to run through the entire ship,

and they will be tagged with the code

to enable this connection.

We're talking about around 2,000 wires

that are cut, marked, and then reconnected.

The same happens with the pipes

and the ventilation conduits.

(speaking in foreign language)

(upbeat music)

Like every ship,

first, the double keel was laid.

And then as it grew before the eyes of the engineers

that built it, it assumed the qualities

of a viable floating vessel.

The new section was built to the same specifications

as the ship it would go into.

And of course, the construction materials and tools

were state-of-the-art, light and transportable.

It took about five months to complete the segment

with the utilities and furnishings

that match the rest of the ship.

At the end of construction, it was duly blessed

in the presence of the local authorities.

The new section of the ship was fitted

with the 2,000 electrical wires and plumbing pipes

so that when the ship was extended an extra 25 meters,

all of the systems would connect.

The ship, before enlargement,

has a gross tonnage of 60,000 tons.

And after it's enlarged, it will be 65,000 tons

in terms of displacement.

So the real weight of the ship

will be from 30,000 tons to 32,500 tons.

The whole extent of the increased weight comes

from the new section.

(upbeat music)

In that five months, the new section

was completely outfitted with carpets,

cabins, and bathrooms.

The jumboisation process is fast and efficient.

So the ship can be returned

to commission service as soon as possible.

(speaking in foreign language)

Also for the cutting of the ship,

well, we can split it up into two phases.

All the preparations for lighting the blow torch

and cutting the ship

start when they remove all the fittings.

When we say fittings, we mean the cabins, the beds,

the mattresses, the bathrooms, the carpets.

Once all these things are all removed,

we get down to the raw metal of the ship.

(speaking in foreign language)

Once the ship was stripped to its iron frame,

metal workers marked a precise plan for cutting the ship.

By referring to the original technical documents

of the vessel, experts measure the plating and beams

in order for them to be cut with precise laser accuracy.

(upbeat music)

A physical mark was made on the cutting line

where metal workers would go in with blowtorches

and melt the metal apart.

After this process, Opera was ready to be stretched,

sitting snugly in the massive dry dock of Palermo, Sicily,

resting on skid shoes that not only took the load,

but also would later be used to move the bow

and stern sections of the ship apart.

The side of the ship or actually all the flat surfaces

are cut semi-automatically.

There are machines that are positioned

so that the cut can be carried out automatically

using normal Acetylene torches.

Basically, with the same Acetylene blow torches

that are very common.

The curved parts of the ship,

the round, bulbous parts are cut by hand

by experienced metal workers.

Not on the areas that need to be cut

are easily accessible.

Some of the spaces are very cramped,

but workers squeeze together and work for hours

to finish the project on schedule.

The number of people needed on the shift depends

on how many people can work in the same space

without interfering with each other,

also, because the ship isn't just randomly cut.

To be able to preserve the ship's structural integrity,

it's cut in a special sequence.

You can't just attack the ships decks

and plates simultaneously.

So basically, we have about 40 people

all cutting a particular section at the same time.

And that process should usually take around four days.

(speaking in foreign language)

(upbeat music)

As the sun set over the port of Palermo,

the dry dock was a buzz with workers ready to perform

a massive nighttime stretching operation.

The MSC Opera was about to undergo an incredible upgrade

in this huge dry dock construction site

where it had been cut in 1/2.

Workers had verified the original technical documents

of the ship and were about to proceed

with the first stages of jumboisation.

After these checks, they could be certain

that the new section would fit into place

with absolute precision.

The bow with the ship slid forward, ready for operations

the next day.

Once lengthened, she would be able to sail

in the waters with as much ease

and with the same fluid dynamics and physics

as she had as a shorter ship.

(upbeat music)

The Italian company, Fagioli, works all over the world,

providing heavy lifting services

for both commercial marine and land operations.

Fagioli and Fincantieri have taken on

a massive lift project together to stretch a cruise liner.

While jumboisation sounds simple in theory,

lifting and transporting these massive loads

is a complicated job.

(speaking in foreign language)

Fagioli became involved in the jumboisation process

that consists of cutting the ship in 1/2 into sections.

One of those parts was then supported

by the Fagioli skidding system that proceeded

to move it 28 meters.

This task was combined

with another lifting system, the SPMT's

to insert the segment between the two extremities.

Once this additional segment was added, the part of the ship

that had been skidded 28 meters was then moved back.

(upbeat music)

Four days after the ship was cut in 1/2,

the Fagioli's skid shoes began their slow work.

Engineers made sure that the skid shoes

were working at the same speed,

so as to provide an even force along the whole hull.

It took six hours for a gaping hull

to appear on the ship where the new segment

could be slipped in over the next day.

(speaking in foreign language)

When the cart was completed, we began operations

and took the weight of the ship on the skid shoes,

and the bow of the ship was lifted.

With 22 skid shoes with 1,000 ton capacity each in all,

the Fagioli's skidding system lifted 15,000 tons.

(upbeat muisic)

The two most critical technologies

that Fagioli provided for the jumboisation project

were the skid shoes and the SPMT transportation

and lifting machines.

SPMT stands for Self-Propelled Modular Transporter.

They are specialized trailers that allow

for the distribution of heavy weights over a large area.

They are used worldwide for moving oversized,

non-detachable, superstructure cargoes.

They have a powerful engine and hydraulic pumps

and must have fast response

for synchronized steering and lifting.

Both systems that we've utilized in our operations here,

the skid shoes and the SPMT,

guarantee all of the six degrees of freedom.

So they allow obviously the horizontal advancement,

the transverse movement,

and also, as we've said before, vertical lift.

(upbeat music)

SPMTs like these are widely used

all over the world for this ability to position heavy loads

with all six degrees of movement.

It's one of the few technologies

that can position these loads in tight spaces.

A single operator can control the SPMTs,

lifting and lowering heavy loads vertically,

as well as moving them forward in reverse and side to side.

On top of all that, they allowed for the rotation

with respect to the three axis.

All the different directions of movement are covered

by the systems we are using.

The purpose of all this is to make sure

we can align the additional section

with the MSC ships sections with millimetric precision.

(upbeat music)

SPMTs can carry a load of over 10 metric tons

per square meter.

This ability to hold a mass distributed

over a large area is crucial when transporting loads

so heavy, they can crush the ground

and crack the concrete underneath.

We can move huge structures offloading very little weight

onto the ground, so keeping within the boundaries

of what the surface can sustain.

(upbeat music)

Although the SPNTs

can take a uniform weight distributed across a large area,

they also have the ability to be taken apart

so that each axle is its own individual unit.

The separate units can be locked together

from the front and the back to build an individual,

train-like transportation system or they can be locked

side by side to allow for extra strength and stabilization.

The SPMTs can be placed together,

both one in front of the other, and also side by side.

For today's operation, we can put together 80 axles.

The weight of the new section was too large

for the SPMTs to be able to move it.

So we chose the skidding system, utilizing the skid shoes.

Meanwhile, the additional segment

had a relatively low weight,

so we could use the SPMTs alone.

(upbeat music)

The MSC Opera sits in the dry dock

of the bustling Italian port city of Palermo.

The ship has been cut and the bow moved forward 28 meters.

However, before Andrew Toso gives the order

to insert the new section,

the yard takes advantage of the gap in the ship

to fill it with fittings that otherwise

would be too large to be inserted

through the existing doors and port holes.

An extraordinary refit is underway

while the ship waits for its extra length of haul.

The ship consists and is constructed as an iron

or rather a steel structure.

And inside we find the fittings.

So when the passengers arrive, they don't see the frame.

They just see the carpets and go into their cabins.

The objects that we put in the ship

are mostly small objects,

so they can be brought aboard the ship

through any normal door or temporarily removed window,

which is easy.

(upbeat music)

Many of the ships' rooms

are part of boxes that can be prebuilt and preloaded

to keep construction on the ship at a minimum.

(speaking in foreign language)

Then when we think about the boxes

such as the bathroom boxes, when the passengers enter,

they'll have toilets, baths, and sinks.

These are built out of fiberglass

and are put together on land.

(upbeat music)

The yard inserts oversized items

such as bathroom boxes at this stage.

But even if other bulky units need to be mounted

after the ship has been sealed shut,

several different methods can be attempted.

(speaking in foreign language)

Here we have two possibilities.

The first possibility, if we're doing an enlargement,

is to see how much we can load

when the three blocks of the ship are separate.

If this is impossible,

we'll make a temporary opening in the ship's hole.

We'll punch holes in the ships hull to load the material.

(upbeat music)

The new section,

prefabricated with all the utilities already installed,

sat on eight massive trailers ready to be slipped in.

Each trailer had 80 wheels

that could pivot independently 180 degrees.

The SPMTs could also lift the new section

to ensure millimetric precision while sliding it in.

The skid shoes had moved the bow forward 28 meters,

enough for the amazing SPMT trailers

to slide the new segment into the new space.

Slowly, the massive wheels of the trailers began to move.

Then after a few meters,

they rotated bringing the new section

in line with the rest of the ship.

Everything had been pre-calculated.

Like a gigantic tight curve,

an error of judging distance

could leave the new section stuck

on the corner of the cut ship.

Then the ship needed to be pulled back together again.

Once again, the Fagioli's skid shoes began

their herculean task of moving the ship's bow

back to where the stump section had been inserted.

Once again, the operation had to be carefully monitored

so that the skid shoes moved at the same speed,

uniformly shifting the section to connect

with the rest of the ship with millimetric precision.

Here, the hydraulic elevators came into play

to bring the edges of the sliced beams and hull

to perfectly connect with the new segment.

How do we attach two metal plates together?

With the welder, obviously,

but it could be an electrode or with a wire,

depending on the technique being used.

What's the maximum distance between these two plates

that I can physically weld together?

Only a few millimeters.

So imagine cutting a ship that, as we've said earlier,

is 28 meters wide with a height of 50 meters from the bottom

to the 11th deck with a margin of error

of just a few millimeters wide.

(upbeat music)

In order for the welders' bead to connect

each separate piece of metal,

both pieces must be close together.

The closer together, the cleaner

and the stronger the welders' line will be.

Obviously, the hull must be watertight.

So the welds must be perfect

all the way around the ship.

(bright upbeat music)

Here and bustling port City of Palermo,

Fincantieri shipyard workers are busy working

on the jumboisation of the MSC Opera.

Now that the ship is once again a single unit,

the furnishings and final utilities have to be completed.

Once the hull of the ship is reconnected,

that's to say the three parts of the ship,

the bow of the ship, the new section and the stern.

So once the hull and the decks have been put back together,

we have to reconnect the plumbing, the electrical wires

and we have to test the systems that were taken apart

due to the cuts.

(upbeat music)

The ship has been stretched

with surgical precision and now the workers can get onboard

and begin turning it into a functioning cruise liner again.

The scars of recent surgery are visible,

but soon the ship will get a new paint job as well.

Most passengers will never know the cruise liner they are on

was once a miniature version of itself.

As the cruise industry grows and the ships get bigger,

vital and questions have arisen about the safety

of thousands of passengers inhabiting

these massive floating hotels far from the seashore.

The second problem with these ships

is that they are created,

designed to keep you shopping on board,

to keep you gambling on board,

to keep you entertained and using the inside of the vessel.

And so it becomes a labyrinth in an accident.

These ships become a trap.

(upbeat music)

The new hydraulic and electrical systems

must be tested while the ship is in the dry dock

before they are tested at sea.

If the systems fail at sea,

it could be very difficult for the company

to return the ship to the dry dock to continue work.

"The ship builder's responsibility is to ensure

the structural solidity of the ship,"

says the Fincantieri yard Director, Filippo Oddo.

The plant is tested in the dock before the sea tests

to ensure that the ship's main plant work.

The structural aspect of enlarging a ship

is the most interesting part of the process

because we have to think about

how we will be able to enlarge something

and make it function as though it were originally built

to that length.

In the sea test,

we have to verify the maneuverability of the ship

which has changed due to its having been lengthened

from original size.

The propulsion and control systems are tested.

Speed tests are carried out to see how the ship behaves.

After the lengthening process, the ship returns to the dock.

We complete the last activities and the ship is delivered.

(upbeat music)

There is still much work to be done

to make the MSC Opera into a viable seagoing vessel.

And only many weeks later is the ship ready for service.

Fincantieri, meanwhile, has found a fast, low cost solution

to keeping cruise companies competitive

by stretching ships and increasing the number of passengers

they can carry.

Heavy lift and massive naval engineering

are probably the least known part of the cruise business,

but they are a reliable support partner

when it comes to keeping the industry afloat.

(speaking in foreign language)

We're adding another piece.

So all the forces that the sea exerted

on the original structure will inevitably change.

So the structural verifications

are definitely the most challenging aspect of the process.

So how did we commence?

We try to keep the dimensions of the new section

such that we can minimize the changes

on the existing ship.

(upbeat music)

The thickness and amount of steel

on the new stump section had to be enough

to withstand the stress exerted upon it

from the weight of the stern and the bow on either side.

Then we made the structural modifications

of the existing ship.

We need to ensure that the new modified ship

will have the same structural integrity

as the ship had before.

(upbeat music)

Before the ships of the Renaissance program

can be used in service, they must undergo a series

of sea trials to prove their strength and seaworthiness.

This whole process,

from the time the ship is put in the dry dock

until we can send it back out again, lasts nine weeks.

(bright upbeat music)

The stretched MSC Opera cruise liner

will take to the sea as a completely rejuvenated ship,

ready to take on the fierce competition.

MSC Cruises has only 5% of the world's cruise markets,

but now can offer bigger ships

at a fraction of the cost of building a new one.

(speaking in foreign language)

After the enlargement of the ship,

she will have an added capacity of about 500 passengers.

So basically, the owner of the ship,

after four enlargement processes

is able to embark as many passengers

as if he had a new ship.

It's a procedure that obviously brings results

but the tolerance or margin of error is very small.

This whole jumboisation process of the four ships

in the series costs 200 million euros overall.

This includes the cost of engineering for all four ships

and customized work that needs to be done,

specifically on each ship.

Overall, the project costs 200 million euros.

(bright upbeat music)

The cruise ship industry may be controversial,

but the technology behind jumboisation is truly remarkable.

The lifting and moving of tens of thousands of metric tons

and cutting metal sheets that are 50 meters tall

utilizes the most modern of technologies.

Recycling ships to make them brand new

gives them added capacity to hold hundreds

of extra passengers.

That saves years of work

and hundreds of millions of euros in resources.

Although the tourism business

will always need new cruise ships,

undoubtedly, the process of putting these ships

under the knife will continue.

Almost certainly, there will be more jumboisation.