“With the “Icon-of-the-Seas”, Royal Caribbean has arguably put into service the world’s greatest anachronism”

“The largest liner in the world”, for two centuries, this title has often been on the front page. How not to think of the cover deployed around the liner Normandy, the French flagship, at the time of its commissioning between Le Havre and New York, in May 1935. Already the disproportion of the ship was underlined. A symbol of technical power and superb aesthetics, the liner Normandy was then an object of emancipation and pride for France. Through him, France had a valuable tool. Capable of building a bridge across the banks, uniting minds and spreading a part of the French dream.

Nearly a century later, the tone has decidedly changed. At the start of 2024, the entry onto the track of Icon-of-the-Seas, Royal Caribbean’s latest addition, made the front pages of news sites, newspapers and television. In fact, it has been a long time since the commissioning of a ship had received such coverage. It is that the excess ofIcon-of-the-Seas is enough to agitate the Landerneau, as it raises questions and provokes a certain amount of indignation. Interesting and justified, for the most part.

But also at the risk of anathema to two complementary and important economic areas: the tourism and cruise sector, on the one hand, and the large-tonnage naval industry, on the other. Since the 1960s, which for a long time marked the victory of airline aviation, the liners of yesteryear have given way to cruise ships.

The symbol of massification

However, this tourism model is not new. At the beginning of the 20th^e century, the large transatlantic liners were reused for winter cruises, inventing part of the unique spirit of voyages of discovery. Eighty-five years ago, under the triumphant sun of Rio, the Normandy was cruising for a prestigious trip on the occasion of Carnival. In itself, cruising constitutes an art of living in its own right. Resting on a closed space where mystery is created. Creating a small traveling company. Opening up exotic destinations. Provoking the possibility of exchanges. Establishing links between what was and what will be.

Unfortunately, the aesthetic singularity of ships, the discovery of distant lands as well as the art of taking your time are values ​​less and less associated with the contemporary cruise model. This tends towards massification and standardization, with increasingly unformed boats intended to increase the number of short-term cabotages, in already saturated and often ransacked tourist areas. Icon-of-the-Seas becomes its emblematic flagship.

It is no coincidence that journalists have taken little interest in its programs, preferring to comment on the facilities that confuse it with an amusement park: its brightly colored slides, its shops full of globalized gadgets, its countless restaurants where we cook standardized products.

The inauguration, all in excess, was chaired by the Golden Ball Lionel Messi and gave the impression of attending a show in a concert hall in Las Vegas. Not at the commissioning of a ship, allegedly the largest in the world. This destabilizes public opinion and makes this model appear for what it is, that is to say totally anachronistic.

For ships on a human scale

Royal Caribbean has arguably commissioned the world’s greatest anachronism. But we should not blame an entire sector and confuse it with this type of proposal. There are companies with qualitative models, particularly in the United Kingdom and France, which offer human-sized ships coupled with respectful tour circuits. It’s up to them to persevere in renovating the world of cruising. A renovation which will also involve greater sobriety.

The port of Saint-Nazaire remains at the forefront of this fight and the companies present have developed revolutionary maritime principles and avant-garde technologies. This is particularly the case for SolidSail, which Chantiers de l’Atlantique has been developing for several years. This technology proposes the use of a sail ensuring the sail propulsion of a new generation of ships. The first images leave lovers of beautiful hulls dreaming. Here is a demonstration of French know-how and treasures of technical creativity and pure aesthetic expression.

At a time when globalization is crossing zones of turbulence and questioning the direction of flows, we will be allowed to dream of the return of maritime transport lines, less polluting, rebalancing airways. THE Icon-of-the-Seas is certainly the biggest anachronism in the world, but that does not taint the maritime world, which holds a significant part of the solutions that will make the maritime world of tomorrow.