Ship-breaking allows the materials from the ship, especially steel, to be recycled and made into new products. This lowers the demand for mined iron ore and reduces energy use in the steelmaking process. Fixtures and other equipment on board the vessels can also be reused.

In addition to taking a huge toll on the health of workers, ship breaking is a highly polluting industry. Large amounts of carcinogens and toxic substances (PCBs, PVCs, PAHs, TBT, mercury, lead, isocyanates, sulfuric acid) not only intoxicate workers but are also dumped into the soil and coastal waters.

During ship breaking, oil residues and other refuses from ships are spilled and mixed with soil and water on the beach, causing widespread pollution of the marine environment and threatening the life of coastal and marine biodiversity (Hossain and Islam, 2006).

The ship breaking industry in South Asia has been under pressure because of alleged abuse of the environment and occupational health hazards. It is seen as a polluting industry that has adverse effects on the ecosystem and human lives, particularly the workers.

• Mothballing. Mothballing, a potential alternative to ship-breaking, is the practice of indefinitely storing a partially or fully decommissioned ship.
• Dry Docking.
• Toxic Sediments Relocation.
• Electrochemical Removal of Tributyltin.
• Paint Scraping.
• Alternate Paints.

Alang is literally a graveyard for ships — the world’s once most powerful ships come here to die. For one, Alang’s beachfront location is ideal for shipbreaking. Tides are heavy there, and the natural slope of the beach makes it easy for a ship to be run on shore.

Alang Ship Breaking Yard

Larger ships may be beached deliberately; for instance, in an emergency, a damaged ship might be beached to prevent it from sinking in deep water. During the age of sail, vessels were sometimes beached to allow them to be rolled over for the hull to be maintained, a process called careening.

Today the shipbreaking process takes place in a facility called ship-breaking yard, while in the past scrapping ships took place in major port cities worldwide, and mostly in those of highly industrialized countries (UK, USA, Germany, Italy).

Scrap Values Chatziginnis said the average scrap value in India is $400 per ton. In Turkey, the value is considerably less at $280-300 per ton. At the height of the pandemic, however, those values could be as low as $90 for EU-flagged ships.

It’s hard to imagine, but most will eventually end up in breaking yards such as Gadani, near the Pakistan port of Karachi, or Alang, India, where they’ll be systematically torn apart. When a ship’s been earmarked for scrapping in somewhere like Alang, its operator will first remove anything it wants for salvage.

Turkey, the place where idled cruise ships go to die Back to video. Its resting place there is a demolition yard where old cargo ships, tankers, research vessels–and now cruise ships retired during the COVID-19 pandemic–get torn apart and broken into pieces.

Sometimes, ships sink accidentally “in the right place”. For instance, the passenger ship Bianca C sank off Grand Anse in Granada back in 1961, accounting for one of the world’s best dive wrecks until today.

Generally speaking, cruise ships will sell their ships to scrap dealers through a broker. These will then pay the shipyards for their work, and make money selling scraps.

Update 10: Further bad news was announced on December 3, 2020, with Carnival canceling all cruises through February 2021 and delating the Mardi Gras for a third time into April 2021. Update 13: Carnival has officially announced that its U.S. operations are now suspended through all of May 2021.

Carnival Cruise Line cancels all cruises for 2020. Carnival’s latest list of cruise cancellations includes departures from all U.S. homeports through December 2020. In addition to Carnival Cruise Line, the remaining brands in Carnival Corporation are also included in the cruise cancellations.

In the last 24 hours, Carnival Cruise Line had already removed all its May 2021 sailings from its website and now another suspension has been officially announced. The cruise line now plans to resume cruises from June 2021 at the very earliest. Mardi Gras’ debut from Port Canaveral has also been cancelled.

It can take 90 days or more to process a cruise refund, but if you call customer service and work with them politely, it is possible to resolve your refund more quickly.

From 14 days prior to sailing to the day of your cruise, the penalty is 100%* of the total fare. No refunds will be made if you do not show up for your cruise or if you interrupt or cancel your vacation once it has begun.

For some lines, including Carnival Cruise Line, the delay in refunding customers has been due to the number of requests coming in and an inability to keep up.

It has now determined that November 2020 operations will not be feasible. Carnival continues to work on protocols and procedures that would allow for the resumption of cruise operations, with a gradual, phased-in approach, designating Miami and Port Canaveral as the first two homeports for embarkations.

Royal Caribbean announced on Tuesday it has extended its voluntary cruise suspension by canceling all of its November 2020 cruises. A statement on its website states all of its sailings are cancelled through November 30, 2020 and the new goal to restart cruises is December 1, 2020.

Fundamentals For CCL Stock The group itself ranks a so-so 50th out of IBD’s 197 groups. CCL stock has an IBD Composite Rating of 37. That means Carnival shares lag 63% of all stocks on a number of technical and fundamental factors, including price performance and earnings.

Domestic sailings for U.K. passengers are set to resume on May 22, 2021, but all other Viking Ocean Cruises voyages are canceled through at least May 31, 2021.

Cruise operators aren’t likely to resume sailings from U.S. ports until the second half of 2021 under the best of circumstances, and possibly not until early 2022, one industry analyst says. Separately on Friday, Carnival (ticker: CCL) on Friday said that it had extended its suspension of U.S. cruises through April 30.

Cruise lines have yet to officially cancel Alaska sailings for 2021, despite the fact that a cruise ship ban announced last week by Canada will make most of them unviable.

Skip these ships.

• MSC’s Preziosa.
• MSC’s Armonia.
• MSC’s Lirica.
• MSC’s Meraviglia.
• Princess Cruises’ Majestic.
• Royal Caribbean’s Quantum of the Seas.
• Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas.
• 13 Worst Cruises. The cruising industry was hit hard this year.

Large Ship Line #1: Disney Cruise Line.

Cruise Lines Ranked From Worst to Best

• Silversea Cruises. Rating: 3.9.
• Holland America Line. Rating: 3.9.
• Royal Caribbean. Rating: 3.9.
• Princess Cruises. Rating: 3.8.
• Carnival Cruise Lines. Rating: 3.7. Class: Mainstream.
• Norwegian Cruise Line. Rating: 3.5. Class: Mainstream.
• MSC Cruises. Rating: 3.3. Class: Mainstream.
• Costa Cruises. Rating: 3.2. Class: Mainstream.

Best Luxury Cruise Lines

• #1. Viking Ocean Cruises. #1 in Best Luxury Cruise Lines.
• #2. Seabourn Cruise Line. #2 in Best Luxury Cruise Lines.
• #3. Crystal Cruises. #3 in Best Luxury Cruise Lines.
• #4. Regent Seven Seas Cruises. #4 in Best Luxury Cruise Lines.
• #5. Azamara Club Cruises. #5 in Best Luxury Cruise Lines.
• #6. Oceania Cruises.
• #7. Silversea Cruises.