Eala-class Cruise Ship

The **Eala-class Cruise Ship**, or **Pattern 396**, is a small and handy little cruise ship for smaller cruise lines or routes with many amenities for passengers.

The vessels of the Eala-class will be delivered bare, meaning without furniture for the passenger spaces or any amenities, so that the customer can equip them by him- or herself.

The term *eala* means swan.

## Design

The Eala-class Cruise Ship is a 183.1 metres long and 24.7 metres wide monohull design with a draught of 6.3 metres and a displacement of 18,000 tons. Twelve decks, seven of which are passenger decks, can house 550 passengers and a crew of 315 men.

Power is supplied in a scheme that is called Integrated Electric Propulsion, IEP for short. Three Diesel Generators, with an output of up to 18,000 kW together (each capable of providing 6,000 kW, the same generators as on the Corrán-class Offshore Patrol Vessel), provide all power needed onboard and then some, from every lamp and coffee maker to the engines. This arrangement safes maintenance time, space and ultimately money as it is simple, yet reliable. The generators rest on shock-absorbers in order to reduce the noise made by them and thus enhancing passenger comfort.

With two electrically powered Azimuth-Thrusters, which in turn are headed by controllable pitch propellers, which allow to achieve the same speed with less energy required then compared to fixed-pitch propellers, the Eala-class Cruise Ship can achieve a maximum speed of 21 knots or 38.9 km/h. Maintenance on the Azimuth-Thrusters is relatively cheap as well, the electrical engines being easy to repair and to exchange. A bow thruster allows for easier manoeuvring of the vessel and easier docking.

The Eala-class Cruise Ship can find its way via a small navigation radar, a Nuacht N-4 Navigation Radar, a capable and proven system, as well as GPS and is, for tradition's sake, equipped with the installations and materials to navigate by the stars, if needed (and someone capable of doing so is onboard).

### Passenger Amenities

The 550 passengers onboard have access to eight of the twelve decks, the remaining four housing the technical spaces, kitchens, accommodations for the 315 men strong crew and so on. The Eala-class Cruise Ship comes equipped with its own water-purification plant,

Passengers have a total of 404 cabins and suites available for booking, 340 of which are simple cabins with a small bathroom, a bed (42 cabins are equipped with double-beds), a table with chairs and a cupboard. All cabins on Deck 5, meaning all double-bed cabins and 130 of the single-bed cabins, have a small veranda, while the remaining cabins on Deck 7 are inside the hull.

Twenty family suites can house up to four people, ideally families, with forty smaller suites with double-beds are available as well. Both of those can be found on Deck 3 or the Suite Deck.

The final passenger accommodations are four so-called Royal Suites, the highest class and largest suites onboard with their own butler (or maid, depending on personal preferences) and come with two bedrooms, a large bathroom, a living room and a veranda with outdoor dining options.

The Eala-class Cruise Ship is equipped with a variety of amenities for the passengers to make the trip more comfortable.

Including that are two pools, one halfway in the open near the aft of the Bridge Deck, the other, smaller one inside of the Promenade Deck, permitting all-weather swimming experience. Both pools can be heated and are equipped with state of the art water cleaning. The Bridge Deck Pool can be separated into two halves, one inside, the other outside, and has two direct connections to the Sun Deck.

Four Bars and four Restaurants are readily available for the passengers to cater to their needs, two of the bars also having enough space for dance floors and a small stage for musicians. The bars and restaurants can be furnished in accordance to the buyer's wishes. Two of the Restaurants are on the Promenade Deck, another on the Bridge Deck and one on the Sun Deck (aftwards, with an outdoor dining space leading downwards to the pool), while two of the Bars are on the Bridge Deck with one each on the Salon Deck and on the Sun Deck (which also has outdoor spaces available).

The Salon Deck also boasts two small libraries and two gyms. Shared between the Salon Deck and the Bridge Deck is a small theatre with 250 seats, which can be used as a movie theatre or for shows or for other events.

The Eala-class Cruise Ship is connected to the outside world by two satellite uplinks, which access international telecommunications satellites to keep contact and to provide communications with the outside world, including an internet connection. One of these uplinks is reserved for internet connections, the other for radio and television, which is transmitted to the passengers via an Onboard Entertainment Network, OEN for short, which is separate from the board computers of the ship itself. Despite that, it is heavily fortified against malware and viruses. Every cabin and suite has access to the OEN via a LAN-connection, as do the Salons, while WLAN-Transceivers are strewn across the ship for wireless access. A small gaming server is part of the delivery as well.

#### Deck Plan

Deck 1: Sun Deck
Deck 2: Bridge Deck
Deck 3: Salon Deck
Deck 4: Suite Deck
Deck 5: Cabin Deck 1
Deck 6: Promenade Deck
Deck 7: Cabin Deck 2
Deck 8: Administrative and Medical Deck
Deck 9: Crew Accommodations
Deck 10: Storage Deck
Waterline
Deck 11: Technical Spaces
Deck 12: Machine Spaces
## History

The Eala-class Cruise Ship, or Pattern 396, is one of the many plans taken over by Silverport Dockyards Limited with the integration of the remains of the Caillte Maritime Solutions Engineering Office of City of Wembury upon the marriage of Nora Cathlong of the Tribe of Cork and Fynn Caillte of the Tribe of Cork in 1988. The latest version of Pattern 396 from that time is dated to the 15th of August 1986.

It was a private venture, as the accompanying documentations says 'because we were bored' (which is basically the motto of SDY's Yard 15), with future possibilities of business with Rón Cruise Lines in mind. After the Yard Crisis of the 70s and the Second Vellenge War in 1983, such vessels were desperately needed by the shipbuilding industry of the Free Lands to survive. With the Ríchathaoir Shipyard Company having closed its gates in 1969, not many of the larger and traditional shipbuilders were remaining, but at the time of the Pattern 396's engineering work, there was already a shipyard company working in Silverport again: Silverport Dockyards Limited.

As the CMSEO went defunct in 1993, the plans were handed over to SDY and slept in an archive for over two decades, until they were unearthed by registrar and handed over to Yard 15 with an entire series of plans.

Pattern 396 was updated and finished by the engineers and is now offered for commercial buyers. Rón Cruise Lines ordered four vessels to modernize their fleet. In 2018, the Cruise Liner *Rón-Colm* attended the NASJAR 1 Competition in Gaineamh, Oileánra-Archipelago as accomodations ship and viewing platform, still on one of her final shakedown cruises.