The world’s first cruise ship tunnel, Stad Ship Tunnel, will be built in Norway that will allow passenger ships to bypass a treacherous sea known for storms.
The mile long tunnel will cost over $300 million USD (NOK 2.7 billion) and allow cruise ships to bypass the most dangerous area along the coast of Norway. The aim of this project is to allow ships to navigate more safely through Stad. More photos of the tunnel can be found at the bottom of this article.
The tunnel will take 3-4 years to build and will be able to accommodate smaller passenger ships. It will be 150 feet high, 118 feet wide and require eight million tons of rock to be removed.
Five ships will be able to pass through the tunnel each hour and it will improve safety as ships won’t have to wait for stormy weather to pass. Construction is expected to begin in 2019 and be completed in 2023.
The impact assessment and the technical pilot project is part of the pilot project that the NCA shall deliver to the Ministry of Transport and Communication in the spring of 2017. Further, the project will undergo an external quality assurance process (KS2) before the project is presented to the Parliament, who then formally decides on project funding. During a press conference in early March this year, consensus among a majority in Parliament for the realization of the world’s first full-scale ship tunnel was presented.
More photos of the proposed cruise ship tunnel:
As an avid cruiser, there are a few things that concern me with this plan. The first is the length of the tunnel (not mentioned in article). Many of the older & smaller vessels still use bunker fuel without scrubbers and for anyone that has ever been down-wind from the exhaust of a cruise ship running bunker fuel, that smell is overwhelming. To be stuck in a long tunnel with the ship moving slowly (as it would have to be) would cause a major buildup of these fumes around the ship. Will there be exhaust removal fans in the tunnel (not mentioned in the article)? Using the term “smaller” ships relates to a very few cruise ships when explaining the designed use of the tunnel. Using a smaller ship , for example the Carnival Paradise that was built in 1998 and has a beam (width) of 103ft wouldn’t even allow this 19 year old ship a whole lot of wiggle room on either side. So it seems that the tunnel would cater to VERY small ships. Will the tunnel develop a “wind tunnel” affect? This could prove dangerous to a ship transitioning the tunnel. Many of the older and smaller ships do not have bow thrusters so that makes navigation harder. How will the tides at either end especially during a storm affect the water in the tunnel. In my opinion, seems like a lot of money to spend for a very small usage of ships!