pounds 20m cruise ship refit will be work for 300

0 Comments | Daily Post; Liverpool (UK), Nov 5, 2009 | by Anonymous

A CRUISE ship operator announced yesterday it is creating 300 jobs by placing a pounds 20 million refit order at a UK dry dock.

Saga Shipping has chosen Swansea Dry Dock in South Wales to carry out a major refit to transform a 446-passenger vessel.

Company chiefs said the contract was awarded to the UK yard in the face of stiff competition from a rival in Germany.

It means the city's dry dock facility will itself undergo a major refit, leaving it better placed to compete for future work.

Three months of work to transform the company's newly purchased vessel will get under way almost immediately, a spokesman said.

The vessel in question is called the Astoria and was bought by the company at auction in Gibraltar earlier this year. By the time it has undergone a comprehensive refit, it will be transformed into a luxury liner and re-christened Saga Pearl II.

It will then come into service on March 15, taking passengers from its base in Southampton to see the Northern Lights in Norway.