THE WORLDS FINEST SHIP, ALSO KNOWN AS HOME

• Raffles
• Onboard
• Ashore
• Financial
• Donald Starkey Designs
• Exploration
• FAQ
• Technical
• Press
• Contact

• A one of a kind ship
• Facts and dimensions
• LR service notations
• General description
• Apartments
• The electric ship
• Main propulsion
• Electrical systems
• Auxiliary machinery  services and systems
• Dependability,  redundancy and back up
• Safety, fire fighting and  lifesaving
• Navigation,  communications and  computerisation
• The marina and aft deck
• Boats, planes, and toys
• Lloyd’s Register
• Raffles operating costs
• Caution
• PDF version

The marina and aft deck

Raffles marina is unique with no other commercial passenger ship known to have one.

The design is based on the British Royal Navy’s 16,000 tons landing platform ship(s) dock, HMS Albion + Bulwark.

Albion’s dock is designed to allow smaller landing craft carrying Challenger battle tanks to drive in and out at anchor and also for large hover landing craft. It does not have the side / gallery decks that Raffles has.

Raffles dock serves the same purpose but instead of being full width its wet dock is only 13m (40ft) wide and extending about 35m forward from the stern entrance doors, with the marina space in total about 48m long and full width. The entrance itself is an about 11m high clear opening, entered between two raked (largely cosmetic) extensions to the hull, port and starboard.

With a water depth of 1.5m to 2m in the wet dock it allows both its 15m expedition boats the 16m large fast water jet ferry, and landing craft to enter and also to be stored here (dry) for long ocean passages.

The marina is separated from the rest of the vessel by a 2m wide full width / depth cofferdam forward that extends above the main / bhd deck. It is surrounded by the 2m wide wing tanks up to the main deck (gallery deck) and with a double hull construction across the transom. Construction under the dock and side decks is mainly single hull compartments but all small, with very heavy transverse / longitudinal subdivision in this area.

In the double transom are two WT vertical hinged doors (also double / sandwich construction) that close over a 4m high lower WT flap that hinges down to aft, but only after the two doors are opened. The flap alone can be closed quickly leaving the doors open in event of bad weather. The doors / flap in the transom when closed and manually secured become a part of the double hull structure but are fabricated from aluminium and stainless steel. Normal door operation is by 24 volt hydraulics (with local back-up power supply) but final WT closure is by hand operated / secured devices, with the door monitored by CCTV in the control room and navigation bridge.

The marina is on two levels with 7.75m wide side teak planked lower / side decks all around the wet dock and a set back, 6m wide U shaped teak planked “gallery” deck at 3m over. At forward the gallery deck is 8m wide and the height over the gallery is 6m, less deep transverse web frames at 10m centres.

The dock itself has a backal wood lining and is evacuated by special high capacity pumps located P&S at aft that also service the separate bilge system in this aft section of the vessel between the two cofferdams.

Flooding the dock can be by the same pumps in reverse or manually operated valve inlets in the flap. (The dock is also used as an emergency overflow “tank” when loading HFO at the main deck fuelling point over).

The marina is both a recreation centre and a work place with a 2 ton gantry crane with 20m span running down the centre from forward to aft and used for repairing boats, loading stores, lifting small boats into the dock for use and to load small vehicles to the boats.

An open cage type lift, rack and cog driven, operates from the port marina side deck up through the gallery deck and on up to the open aft deck in a WT casing over. It is used for stores but also provides personal, particularly wheel chair access.

The marina can also be used as an alternative entry point for ships boats when at anchor and rough seas prohibit the use of the semi submersible pontoon / companionway at the midships entry point.

A special feature of Raffles, a 9m long all aluminium fully enclosed tug / lifeboat RIB is housed in a “garage” at the port side aft marina gallery level. It is launched via an inclined ramp down the port transom with a WT door over and the boat garage itself WT, accessed by a door from the marina gallery.

A stern anchor, HHP type on a wire is mounted at the gallery deck level starboard on transom aft. Winch is electric housed inboard at the marina side deck. Anchor deploys over the starboard transom via a pop-up roller guide.

Complementing the marina two boat booms are fitted port and starboard outboard of the open deck on which boats not in use can be secured by a single tensioned line while streamed alongside.

The large about 1,800m² aft open working / recreation deck immediately over the marina is also not standard on a cruise or residence vessel.

At this deck are stowed larger boats, aircraft, and vehicles with the forward, about 600m² area partially enclosed as a hanger / garage, all serviced by tracked gantry cranes. This area also has light workshop facilities forward.

A 100 tons at 3m extending boom electro-hydraulic crane mounted on transverse rails is used to lift large boats, float plane, vehicles, etc. into the water or to boats. It is also used to lift vehicles to alongside in port and for heavy storing.

Boats and planes are stored on special racks / cradles.

At extreme aft centre is the 436 survivor mass evacuation system (MES) as a back up to the lifeboats. Outboard P&S are another eight 100 survivor fully reversible life rafts. Also P&S on quick release racks are four large (2,000 litres) stainless steel survival capsules fitted with automatic floatation collars.

The aft deck is teak planked with mooring bollards on bronze / stainless steel pedestals through the deck arranged for Mediterranean mooring, with vertical electric capstans adjacent.