China's first ship! About to be launched!

There is such a "city on the sea" with 24 floors, 2,125 rooms, a capacity of 5,246 passengers, and a total tonnage of 135,500 tons. In the public area of ​​more than 40,000 square meters (nearly 6 standard football fields), there are a variety of leisure and entertainment facilities such as multiple restaurants, theaters, water parks, gyms, basketball courts, etc. There is also the largest duty-free shop at sea, where you can watch dramas and enjoy 5G signal coverage. This is our domestic cruise ship - "Aida Magic City".

The name "Aida Magic City" not only reflects the identity of Shanghai manufacturing, but also highlights the first domestically-made large cruise ship's pursuit of perfection in product design, art design, and experience design.

my country's first domestically-made large cruise ship is expected to be officially launched on June 6, and will be delivered by the end of this year. Do you want to experience it? So, why is it called a cruise ship instead of a cruise ship? Here is a popular science for everyone. Before the emergence of air transportation, mail and other items were mainly transported by large ships, so the word "mail" was used, while cruise ships generally sailed on inland rivers.

01

The first domestically-made large cruise ship is about to be launched

Our big cruise ship is about to be undocking, so what does "undocking" mean? It refers to the operation of floating the completed ship on the water surface in the dock and leading it out of the dock to dock at the pier. The first step of floating is to draw water into the dock, use buoyancy to make the cruise ship leave the ground, and then use the towing rope to move the cruise ship from the current position in the dock to the side close to the dock. It is not an easy task to make such a huge ship float steadily and move. The whole floating process takes about 6 to 8 hours, and during this process, the staff will conduct multiple rounds of safety inspections.

For a cruise ship, the conditions for leaving the dock mean that the main core equipment and pipelines on the ship have been basically installed, and the hull performance test has basically ended. It can be said that the dock has witnessed the process of cruise ship construction and growth. Leaving the dock means that the cruise ship has "grown up" and has the ability to sail.

It is understood that after the cruise ship is refloated, it will also undergo three tests in the dock, namely, tilting test, hatch flushing test and lifeboat unhooking cruise, in preparation for the subsequent sea trials. After all the tests are completed, our domestically-made large cruise ship is expected to open the dock door on June 6 and officially move to the outfitting dock for outfitting and mooring tests.

02

The first domestically-made large cruise ship was born. The "ship" made in China

A large cruise ship is like a mobile city on the sea. When a cruise ship sails on the sea, it has to withstand the test of wind and waves, and solve basic problems such as water supply, power supply, and sewage disposal by itself. It is hard to imagine how difficult it is to achieve such complex functions in a limited space. It has high technical content and is extremely difficult to design and build, comparable to an aircraft carrier. Therefore, large cruise ships, like aircraft carriers and liquefied natural gas carriers, are praised as the "most dazzling jewel in the crown" of the shipbuilding industry, which directly reflects a country's equipment construction capabilities and comprehensive scientific and technological level.

As the most complex single electromechanical product in the world, this large cruise ship has as many as 25 million parts, which is 5 times that of the C919 large aircraft and 13 times that of the Fuxing high-speed rail. The cables are more than 4,300 kilometers long, which is approximately equal to the distance from Shanghai to Lhasa.

In the process of cruise ship construction, not only is the cable layout complicated, but weight is also an extremely sensitive factor. The first domestic cruise ship weighs about 65,000 tons. Every ton increase in weight means that the amount of materials or people on board will be reduced. In order to control the weight from the source, it uses a large amount of 4mm to 8mm thin steel plates.

Data shows that in 2022, my country's shipbuilding industry's international market share in terms of completion volume, new orders, and backlog orders remained the world's first, ranking first in the world for 13 consecutive years. In the first two months of this year, my country's shipbuilding industry received 9.25 million deadweight tons of new orders, accounting for 62.8% of the global market share.

Recently, China State Shipbuilding Corporation Limited signed a cooperation agreement worth more than 21 billion yuan, setting a new record for the largest amount of container ship contracts signed at one time in China's shipbuilding industry, adding fuel to the booming Chinese shipbuilding industry. While the market share continues to expand, a large number of high-tech ships have become a new highlight of the high-quality development of China's shipbuilding industry through the optimization of product structure. The quantity is increasing and the quality is improving. This is the well-deserved Chinese "ship" theory.

03

my country's second domestically-produced large cruise ship has also started construction

Supply chain localization process accelerates

The first domestic large cruise ship is about to be launched, and the second domestic large cruise ship also started construction on schedule in August last year. The construction of cruise ships requires a lot of supply chain support, and my country used to be completely blank in this regard. Through the construction of these two domestic cruise ships, the entire supporting system for cruise ships has made a great breakthrough. The cruise ship looks like a large ship, but in fact, the equipment system inside the entire ship is very complex, and the decoration materials and electromechanical equipment inside are very high. For cruise ships, it has a complete industrial system called the cruise supply chain, which is crucial to the development of our entire equipment.

Before this, my country did not have its own cruise ships. In the entire cruise economic chain, it only occupied one link of consumers. This consumption model is also called "passing economy". Now, cruise ships are manufactured and operated by ourselves, which means that the entire chain of the entire cruise industry has basically been established in China.

At present, large cruise ships are the only high-tech, high-value-added ship products that have not yet been completed in China's shipbuilding industry. Being able to manufacture large cruise ships that fully meet international standards means a new leap in my country's shipbuilding technology, and will make China the fifth country in the world capable of building large cruise ships after Germany, France, Italy and Finland.

The design of our domestically produced large cruise ships is very Chinese, and they are tailor-made for the characteristics of the Chinese market and the preferences of tourists. By 2035, my country's cruise market will become one of the most dynamic markets in the world, with an annual passenger volume of 14 million, and the contribution to my country's economy may reach about 550 billion yuan.

Source: CCTV News

Producer/Li Zhe Editor-in-chief/Wang Xingdong

Reporter: Cui Xia, Chen Wen, Huang Hong Editor: Shao Tianfeng

Proofreading/Gao Shaozhuo

Some of the materials are from 21st Century Business Herald, etc.