18 | Cruise Fleet Whilst Flinders Ports are currently required to accommodate Oasis Class vessels (to varying extents), the likely limitation on the global fleet vessel length will go some way to ensuring that this doesn’t change again, at least until the longer term.
Accordingly, it is likely that the current upper end Port Adelaide vessel could be amongst the world’s largest, and this could occur within the next 5 to 10 years. It would stand to reason then that it is not so much the berth size at Flinders Ports that will be the limiting factor, but ever increasingly it is berth availability that will drive capacity and perhaps trade limitations (taking current facility upgrades into account). Should ports not keep up with cruise demand, the lines have a tendency to simply drop that call from their itinerary and this can happen quickly. Indeed, the same goes for home port scenarios, where vessels are relocated elsewhere if capacity
does not exist to accommodate them, or even if facilities are not up to standard (lack of efficiency etc). What are also changing however are the smaller cruise vessels, used for expedition and adventure cruising. As the demand for this increases, some increase in the size of those vessels is expected, however there will likely be some limitation to this given that those vessels often need to be smaller to visit remote sites of interest. Based upon the above, the projected maximum South Australian cruise vessels over the short, medium and longer terms are provided in the figure below.
Figure 17 Proposed SA Design Cruise Vessel (Black Quay, 2020)
Flinders Port Holdings Masterplan
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