MSC Cruises has celebrated the float out of MSC Virtuosa at Chantiers de l’Atlantique in Saint-Nazaire, France – the third shipbuilding milestone the company has completed in the past month at the shipyard
The float out follows MSC Grandiosa’s delivery on 31 October and the steel cutting ceremony on the same day of MSC Europa, the company’s first of five liquefied natural gas (LNG)-powered ships.
MSC Cruises also unveiled on the same day a ground-breaking R&D project in conjunction with Chantiers de l’Atlantique named PACBOAT that will focus on integrating a new fuel cell technology, especially relevant for cruising, on board LNG-powered MSC Europa.
MSC Virtuosa will be the second Meraviglia-Plus ship after MSC Grandiosa and will now move to a wet dock for further construction and fitting until delivery in October 2020.
The sixth MSC Cruises ship to enter service since 2017, MSC Virtuosa will be the second ship in the company’s fleet to have a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system and next-generation advanced wastewater treatment system (AWTS) to minimise its environmental footprint and ensure ever cleaner air emissions.
MSC Virtuosa’s SCR will help reduce nitrogen oxide by 80% with the technology converting it into harmless nitrogen and water. It’s next-generation AWTS will treat wastewater to a better standard than most land-based municipal waste standards around the world.
Shore-to-ship power will also be fitted to MSC Virtuosa which connects a docked cruise ship to a port’s local power grid to further reduce air emissions. This feature is broadly available across MSC Cruises’ entire fleet and has been standard across all of the company’s new ships since 2017.
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