Cruise Centre booms amid calls for another

Just before CC3 opened in June, AIDA Cruises chief Michael Ungerer was quoted as saying that if Hamburg wanted to profit from rapid growth in global cruise shipping, it would need a fourth cruise centre. The ships of frontrunner AIDA and others made 189 calls last year and fed nearly 600,000 passengers through the Hafen City (CC1) and Altona (CC2) cruise centres available in 2014.

Hamburg’s governing Senate has linked a fourth terminal to a city bid to host the 2024 or 2028 Summer Olympics and plans have been aired to develop the port’s Kleiner Grasbrook commercial area as part of an Olympics site. But opponents like the powerful UVHH port operators’ body fear for jobs and the loss of commercial areas and have gone onto the streets in protest this summer.

Benoit Surin, a spokesman for the new cruise operating company Cruise Gate Hamburg (CGH) told Maritime Journal put things into perspective: “There are, as yet, no concrete plans for the construction of a fourth terminal”, he said. “What are being talked about at the moment are just pipe dreams – for the event that Hamburg might get to host the Olympics”.

The CGH is a joint venture grouping Hamburg Port Authority and Hamburg Airport Authority. It was created just last year to promote and co-ordinate cruise business and is in charge of operations and berth assignment at all three Hamburg cruise terminals. It will be in a stronger position after it has taken over CC1 and CC 2 as well as the new CC3 early next year.

The new CC3, a former multi-purpose cargo facility, covers about 16 hectares. The 450m central Kronprinzkai berth handles ships of more than 330m long drawing up to 13m. The quay boasts extra strong storm bollards and larger than usual fender installations to create distance between ships and quay. Bilfinger Marine & Offshore built those. The centre’s two terminal buildings of around 9,000 m2 and built by Goldbeck Nord divide incoming and outgoing passengers. They are linked to ships by unique, custom-built passenger boarding bridges from Spain’s ADELTE Ports & Maritime, which are billed as adjustable in all directions.

Underway at the CC3 up to next year, the CGH told Maritime Journal, is a unique pilot project to test trucked-in gas supply to berthed ships for on-board conversion into electrical power. There is also an LNG barge on call when needed. The CGH said however there was no shore power link at CC3 and no plans for one.

By Tom Todd