Saturday Ems passage for Serenade

The early hours of Saturday morning will see the latest cruise ship Meyer Werft is building for Royal Caribbean International depart for the North Sea from the shipyard?s Papenburg outfitting basin. The 90,000g panamax vessel, which has an overall length of 293.2m, will leave Papenburg soon after midnight on Saturday morning for its passage down the River Ems. The passage will be completed with the vessel travelling backwards under its own power at about 7 knots, which will involve the ship?s pod propulsion units pushing water back under the hull. The whole passage, which is in the command of Emden pilot Thomas Teitge, is expected to take about 12 hours. Final outfitting and sea trials will take place from a base in Eemshaven, the Netherlands prior to the vessel?s delivery at the end of the month. The webcam on www.meyerwerft.de will cover the passage.