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Can Icon fit under the Varrazzano bridge?


RCIfan1912

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This has been asked before regarding the bridge of the Americas. 
Conclusion of discussion is that any ship can make it under/through any bridge if sailing in excess of 20 knots. 
 

I do not know if Icon can make it under the Varrazzano bridge without exchanging paint.  

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I would think not. At twenty decks tall….and the slides….doesn’t look like it would get under the bridge. 
The Oasis barely clears it and that’s with the smoke stacks lowered. 
But…(joking alert!) maybe they’ll make a little ‘tweak’ to the Verrazano and turn it into a drawbridge. Shouldn’t be too hard. Little bit of cutting and add a couple of heavy duty hinges. Easy peasy! 🤪

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Air draft has always been an elusive number largely because it is not a fixed number.  Height above water line varies depending on loading of fuel, supplies, cargo and passengers plus ballasting and even water conditions like salinity and temperature.  

"Decks" is also an elusive number.  NCL on many ships starts their deck numbering at 1 all the way down below the waterline where no guests ever go.  By the time you reach their highest deck it's 18 but only 14 decks are passenger accessible.  Yet these same ships with 18 claimed decks are not as tall as Quantum or Oasis class.  Some Royal ships have a deck 0 and and deck 00 but unless you are on a behind the scenes tour you'll never see them.   Oasis has a deck 18 where loft suite bedrooms are located yet Oasis is often referred to as having 17 decks mostly because that is what passengers can a press button for in an elevator.

Having said all this it does appear Icon should have a higher air draft compared to Oasis.  Despite that not being able to fit into New York, or Vancouver it doesn't really limit their deployments. For 10 years Oasis operated without going under a bridge once in service and so did her sisters in class once they entered service.  I'd hardly call a few bridges around the world as limiting Icon's deployment opportunities.  

Quantum class have sailed under two bridges since entering service, Verrazano Narrows and Lion Gate.  Bridges are not a hindrance to most cruise ports around the world.  All ports except two... at least for modern, large cruise ships.

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2 hours ago, twangster said:

"Decks" is also an elusive number.  NCL on many ships starts their deck numbering at 1 all the way down below the waterline where no guests ever go.  By the time you reach their highest deck it's 18 but only 14 decks are passenger accessible.  Yet these same ships with 18 claimed decks are not as tall as Quantum or Oasis class.  Some Royal ships have a deck 0 and and deck 00 but unless you are on a behind the scenes tour you'll never see them.   Oasis has a deck 18 where loft suite bedrooms are located yet Oasis is often referred to as having 17 decks mostly because that is what passengers can a press button for in an elevator.

All good points.  In addition, some ships have a deck 13, and others don't.  And the height of a 'deck' isn't necessary the same when you compare different ships.  The high of each deck can be different even on the same ship (e.g. passenger cabin only decks often have lower ceiling heights.  same thing for the deck holding the kids club on Disney Dream/Fantasy.)  The distance between decks can also differ.

It's the same reason "number of floors" in a building on land isn't really a good way to compare buildings.  Distance between floors on a residential high rise building is going to be less than an office building, especially once you factor in raised floors and/or dropped ceilings.  Different numbers of mechanical floors are going to pop up in between occupied floors at different rates between buildings, etc.

 

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3 hours ago, RCIfan1912 said:

Well I was looking for real numbers not guesses but looks like we don't have the full dimensions yet. If it's that much taller than Oasis then it's really gonna be limited to where it can sail from. 

 

Limited to where it can sail from??  More like limited in where it can not sail from, bridges are not a concern at the vast majority of embarkation points.

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On 10/22/2022 at 12:04 PM, TXcruzer said:

Limited to where it can sail from??  More like limited in where it can not sail from, bridges are not a concern at the vast majority of embarkation points.

Yes, I'm not sure it could sail from Boston, NJ and definitely not Baltimore. It can sail from Florida I'm pretty sure any port. It's also going up be even tougher to sail to places/ports/islands than Oasis. I love this ship so far, and how Royal Caribbean always innovates and pushes the limits. There are things to be worked out here though. 

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15 minutes ago, RCIfan1912 said:

Yes, I'm not sure it could sail from Boston, NJ and definitely not Baltimore. It can sail from Florida I'm pretty sure any port. It's also going up be even tougher to sail to places/ports/islands than Oasis. I love this ship so far, and how Royal Caribbean always innovates and pushes the limits. There are things to be worked out here though. 

Yes it will be interesting, the initial lineup of ports listed in the itineraries would lead me to believe that Icon can visit anywhere that Oasis does currently.

I wonder if Icon will be able to tender?

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On 10/22/2022 at 8:17 AM, BrianB said:

I would think not. At twenty decks tall….and the slides….doesn’t look like it would get under the bridge. 
The Oasis barely clears it and that’s with the smoke stacks lowered. 
But…(joking alert!) maybe they’ll make a little ‘tweak’ to the Verrazano and turn it into a drawbridge. Shouldn’t be too hard. Little bit of cutting and add a couple of heavy duty hinges. Easy peasy! 🤪

... or just go ahead and raise it like they did with the Bayonne Bridge

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Never mind any other bridge in the world, but in order to get to any of those ports (excluding ports in the baltic sea) she first will have to clear the Storebaelt bridge in oder to get from Turku on the Baltic sea to the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

Storebaelt bridge has a clearing of 65m (213 ft). As I'm sure the designers took this into consideration, we can assume that the she will be able to pass under this bridge, possibly driven backwards, as this helps to lower the overall heights by a few feets as well.

Verrazano has a clearance of 69.5 m (228 ft), so Icon should fit easily.

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2 hours ago, Carlos A. said:

A few years ago I remember seeing a lot of threads speculating and people saying that an Oasis class ship wouldn't fit under Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge...

I wonder what happened... 😉

I actually wouldn't until they made some minor modifications to lower the smokestacks.  They had them down to move it from the shipyard, but the intent was to lock them in the up position after that, which they did.  So they had to "unlock" them and I'm sure they added some automated system to raise and lower them.

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Given the time between leaving the shipyard and going into service I'm curious if they plan to add some of the slide superstructure once it's cleared the Great Belt bridge.  

They may sail it out partially completed and finish it at a wet dock, sort of like they did with Wonder but to a more extensive degree.  

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15 minutes ago, twangster said:

Given the time between leaving the shipyard and going into service I'm curious if they plan to add some of the slide superstructure once it's cleared the Great Belt bridge.  

They may sail it out partially completed and finish it at a wet dock, sort of like they did with Wonder but to a more extensive degree.  

Wouldn't be surprising.

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On 10/24/2022 at 8:01 AM, Brandis said:

Never mind any other bridge in the world, but in order to get to any of those ports (excluding ports in the baltic sea) she first will have to clear the Storebaelt bridge in oder to get from Turku on the Baltic sea to the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

Storebaelt bridge has a clearing of 65m (213 ft). As I'm sure the designers took this into consideration, we can assume that the she will be able to pass under this bridge, possibly driven backwards, as this helps to lower the overall heights by a few feets as well.

Verrazano has a clearance of 69.5 m (228 ft), so Icon should fit easily.

Wow very interesting. I hope all these numbers hold true! 🙏

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6 hours ago, sk8erguy1978 said:

I remember watching this IN 2009, I was very impressed. Besides the stacks being able to be lowered, all the other factors that also came into play... too cool!

breaking-bad-yeah.gif

Imagine the Captain that first time...  all these people telling him "Go fast, it'll be fine.  We'll be watching you with helicopters."

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43 minutes ago, twangster said:

Imagine the Captain that first time...  all these people telling him "Go fast, it'll be fine.  We'll be watching you with helicopters."

Going fast actually is the key, as at fullspeed, the back part of the ship sits deeper in the water, giving it a couple of ft. additional clearance.

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15 minutes ago, Brandis said:

Going fast actually is the key, as at fullspeed, the back part of the ship sits deeper in the water, giving it a couple of ft. additional clearance.

Indeed, but as the captain sitting in a meeting in the months before as they planned the escape, being told go fast and you'll make it, slow down and you'll potentially crash a brand new billion dollar ship into a bridge - balls of steel.  "Engines don't fail me now".

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