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Why will no Oasis class ship home port / visit Boston?


soremekun
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I live in Boston, and I can tell you that our pier isn't that big....definitely not big enough to accomodate an Oasis class ship.  It does ok with the smaller ships, but the bigger NCL ships have trouble with it, and Oasis is bigger than those.  Since there isn't really any space to expand the pier, it looks like we won't be seeing Oasis class ships in Beantown anytime in the near future.

 

Regarding travel time to the Bahamas - I had an NCL cruise out of Boston that was supposed to go to Bermuda.  We got rerouted to the Bahamas due to Hurricane Gonzalo, and it took a full 2.5 days to sail to Nassau.  The Caribbean is barely reachable from New York, and almost not worth it for 7 days from Boston.

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3 hours ago, soremekun said:

Here is a picture I took September 23, 2017.  From this angle, it appears as if there would be enough space to maneuver if there were only two ships.

IMG_20170923_111847.thumb.jpg.5fe7288f2a334e5f2c0d1edd44e8597e.jpg

While it looks like an Oasis class ship could park there, is the terminal equipped to handle 6000 passengers coming and going 

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3 hours ago, soremekun said:

Here is a picture I took September 23, 2017.  From this angle, it appears as if there would be enough space to maneuver if there were only two ships.

 

The channel between the Flynn Cruise Terminal and the Conley Container Terminal is about 600' wide.  When maneuvering down a channel like this, the maximum beam of Oasis becomes a controlling factor (198' or nearly 1/3 the total width), and having container ships at the terminal reduces the channel by their beam, and any other cruise ship at the Flynn terminal would reduce that width even more.  This could be a very difficult maneuver for so large a ship, possibly requiring tugs (whether the cruise line wants them or not) that require even more channel width to work.

 

The article you linked in your original post is for the "main channel" of Boston harbor, not the channel to the Flynn terminal, which has a controlling depth of 35' above mean low water.  Each company sets their own policies on "under keel clearance" (the amount of water needed under the keel at all times), so I don't know what RCI's policy is, but 4' is a real minimum.  I'm surprised that Cunard will allow a ship at a pier with only 1 foot under keel, unless they restrict dock times to high tide range (median tide range is 10').

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1 hour ago, soremekun said:

@chengkp75 Your knowledge is amazing.  Thanks again!

 

It's just my fantasy (to have an Oasis class or Quantum class ship home port in Boston) since I live only a 15 minute drive away.  sigh

Home port, probably not, but like the QM2, maybe a port of call where they can control the arrival/departure times to match high water, and minimum ships present at the other docks (mid-week for cruise ships).  The problem I see is that I'm not sure if any ports north of Boston can handle the ship, so why make a port call?

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