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| Construction of a ship officially begins when the first steel is cut and some of it begins to be assembled into blocks. Most people, however, look at the start of construction when the first block of the keel is laid in the drydock, and you can actually see the ship beginning to form. Here you can see the first block of Nieuw Amsterdam ready to be lowered into position at the keel laying ceremony at Fincantieri's Marghera yard on March 24. | |
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| Nieuw Amsterdam's construction got a head
start on the keel-laying because the ship's forward section was
pre-built at Fincantieri's Sestri yard near Genoa on Italy's west coast.
It was then towed all the way around Italy to Fincantieri's Marghera
yard near Venice, arriving just prior to the keel-laying. (A map is
below.) It was first floated into Nieuw Amsterdam's building dock and
placed on the blocks. Once the ceremonial first block was laid,
the pieces were later joined, and the rest of the ship is now being
built around it.
The 86,000-ton vessel is the second in the Signature-class and set for delivery in late June 2010.
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