Tokyo-based Peace Boat has emerged as the buyer of a ship that led to the announcement last week from Pullmantur Cruises that it was dropping the Zenith.
The cruise operator — a non-governmental, non-profit organisation that works to promote peace, human rights, and sustainable development — confirmed to TradeWinds this week that Pullmantur's 47,400-gt Zenith (built 1992) will become its second ship at the beginning of next year.
Cruise industry sources said the 1,800-passenger Zenith had been purchased outright by Japan Grace Co, the commercial operator of Peace Boat.
Global reach
While Peace Boat did not elaborate on the transaction, citing confidentiality requirements, it said that the ship would be deployed from April 2020 on three-month itineraries around the world.
These will be in addition to those undertaken by its current ship, the 35,300-gt Ocean Dream (built 1981), which it acquired from Pullmantur in 2012.
“The Peace Boat II cruises onboard Zenith will offer Peace Boat's passenger base a cruise experience on a larger, newer vessel — enabling Peace Boat's outreach to increase further among passengers across East Asia,” Peace Boat founder and director Yoshioka Tatsuya wrote in response to queries from TradeWinds.
The Peace Boat II cruises onboard Zenith will offer Peace Boat's passenger base a cruise experience on a larger, newer vessel and enabling Peace Boat's outreach to increase further among passengers across East Asia
Yoshioka Tatsuya
The ship will likely be managed by Miami-based Maritime Holdings Group, the technical managers of the Ocean Dream.
Kinetic technology
The outfit is also working with Peace Boat on its Ecoship project to build a 60,000-gt environmentally sustainable cruiseship equipped with wind sails and turbines, solar power generation, and kinetic floors that convert passenger footsteps into electricity.
A letter of intent to build the ship was signed with Finland’s Arctech Helsinki Shipyard in May 2017, but no firm deal has yet been concluded.
Peace Boat said this week that the project is still ongoing and further details will be released in the coming months.
The loss of the Zenith leaves Pullmantur, a subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Cruises, with three cruiseships in its fleet. The company said in its announcement last week that details on how it would be replaced, along with future growth plans, would be announced shortly.
Cuba cruises
Cruise industry observers strongly expect that Royal Caribbean will transfer the 48,600-gt cruiseship Empress of the Seas (built 1990) to Pullmantur from the fleet of its flagship outfit, Royal Caribbean International (RCI).
Pullmantur operated that ship as the Empress between 2008 and 2016, when it was transferred to RCI to operate cruises to Cuba.
With the Cuban cruise sector cancelled due to a change in US legislation, it has been deployed elsewhere in the Caribbean. But it remains an odd fit in the RCI fleet, where the other ships are all double its size.
