WET SEASON Anger as ship cancels visit
THE largest ship booked to dock at the Port of Cairns this month has been forced to sail past the city as wind and rough water conditions made it impossible to come into port.
Sea Princess was scheduled to arrive at the Cairns Cruise Liner Terminal at 9am yesterday with about 2900 passengers and crew on board.
Secretary of lobby group Cairns Port Development Inc., Emma Thirkell, said the cruise ship tried three times to dock before giving up about 3pm.
She said Cairns Port Development Inc had been fighting for upgrades at the port for several years to improve access for larger shipping, including cruise ships.
She said, not only was Sea Princess affected by not being able to carry out the scheduled one-day stop, so were local tourism operators.
“The shore would have been excursions arranged, buses booked … the cancellations cost jobs,” she said.
“If the 2015 Cairns Shipping Development project was carried out, this would not be happening today.
“We’ve been fighting for the project but it’s been dragged out and the costs have been increased and the project had been reduced in size.
“The 2018 cruise passenger projections are about 68,000 arriving at Cairns Port and about 72,000 off Yorkeys Knob, where passengers reluc- tantly travel by tender boats to shore. The 2017 season was about 64,000 through Cairns port and 76,000 off Yorkeys Knob. So, get set for more-ofthe-same from Ports North in 2018.”
Ms Thirkell said, while there was a small expansion planned for the Cairns shipping channel next year, it “will not bring in the Voyager class”.
The Port of Cairns will host 56 cruise ship visits this year, many of them overnight and seven with P&O’s Pacific Eden home-porting once again in Cairns.
Ports North blamed weather for Sea Princess arriving.
“We understand that due to poor weather, including high winds, the Sea Princess cancelled its call to both Cairns and Port Douglas,” said a Ports North spokeswoman. the not