Walk on Water
FLOATING CRUISE PIER TO DEBUT I N THE CARIBBEAN.
FIVE YEARS AFTER THE INSTALLMENT OF SEAWALK,
a floating cruise pier, in the UNESCO-listed fjord of Geiranger, Norway, the company has announced its first foray into the Caribbean. The SeaWalk pier will become a central part of an extensive tourist development project in Jamaica for the Port Authority of Jamaica. The SeaWalk pier is scheduled to be delivered in fall 2018 to be installed at Port Royal, part of "the sunken pirate city,” which is being preserved by the Jamaica National Heritage Trust.
"This is a big breakthrough for us, and creates many opportunities in the future," says Arthur Kordt, partner of Cruise Ventures, which delivers the SeaWalk piers. "We see that there is a large potential for flexible, environmentally friendly cruise piers in the world markets these days, and we expect to do more installations in the near future. The SeaWalk pier has already been used for more than 350 cruise calls in five different destinations in Scandinavia. The clear advantage of the SeaWalk is that cruise passengers can be brought to shore at almost any destination possible.”
It was a decisive factor for the government in Jamaica that SeaWalk had been in operation in Geiranger; this fjord is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, while UNESCO application is pending for the Underwater City of Port Royal.
"SeaWalk is one of the most important environmental measures in Geiranger as it eliminates the need for tender boats," says Rita Berstad Maraak, harbor master in Geirangerfjord Cruise Harbor.
“We use mooring installations based on the extreme North Sea environment, which, up until now, has been unprecedented in the Caribbean region,” says Captain Svein Sleipnes, regional representative for SeaWalk, adding that “SeaWalk can utilize safe havens previously not available until now.”