Schulte Marine Concept (SMC), the project management division of the marine services company Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement (BSM), working in conjunction with Bernhard Schulte Cruise Services (BS Cruise), has won its first cruise ship contract with the Portuguese company Mystic Cruises.
Schulte Marine Concept will provide technical consulting and construction supervision for the new expedition ship MS World Explorer.
Mystic Group, led by Mario Ferreira, a prominent Portuguese businessman, already operates successful river cruises. DouroAzul is the largest operator on the Douro River with 16 ships, but Mystic Group also recently acquired the German company Nicko Cruises, which operates another 20 riverboats on various rivers such as the Danube, Rhine, Elbe, and even the Yangtze, Mekong, and Nile. Both river cruise companies will have new ships in 2018.
Now Mystic Group wants to break into the luxury ocean cruise market, and Mario Ferreira has stated his intention to build three more ships in addition to the World Explorer in the next four years.
SMC's extensive experience with complex projects at leading shipyards, in addition to a growing portfolio of passenger ships, have been key to winning the contract.
The MS World Explorer will be a 126-meter expedition cruise ship with a capacity for 200 passengers and 111 crew members. It will comply with the Polar Code and will have hybrid engines to allow navigation in environmentally sensitive waters. Construction has already begun at the West Sea shipyard in Viana do Castelo, northern Portugal, and the ship is expected to be ready in the winter of 2018.
