The MSC Armonia, the largest cruise ship to date, berths at Maó
10/05/2016
The MSC Armonia berthed at Maó's Port coming from Marseille the last 9th of May, after 6 a.m. It is the largest cruise ship in Minorca to date, a vessel of 276 metres in length which transports almost 2.000 passengers.
The commander of the MSC Armonia, Pietro Escarpato, received a commemorative metope of the visit and he gave a souvenir of the day to the president of the Balearic Islands' Port Authority (APB), Joan Gual de Torrella; to Rosa Cardona, of the company Transcoma, agent of the vessel; to Santiago Florit, Minister for Regional Planning of Minorca Council, and to Maó's mayor, Conxa Juanola.
All the institutions have worked together to position Maó as a boutique port in the Mediterranean and to spread the natural and cultural values of Minorca internationally.
But the arrival of a vessel of this nature has been possible thanks to the improvement works of the port conducted by the APB, which include the elimination of the ro-ro ramp of the Cruise Dock (before the Passengers Dock) and the dredging done in 2014.
Besides, in order to guarantee the security of the port and the manoeuvrability of the ship, tests were done with a simulator at the Centro de Seguridad Marítima Integral Jovellanos of Gijón, in which the captain of the MSC Armonia himself participated. The berthing of the ship was approved by the pilots of Maó's port and the Maritime Authority.
According to forecasts, the MSC Armonia will visit Minorca 9 more times (the original estimate was of 11, but two calls before the 9th of May had to be cancelled due to high winds), so this ship will bring more than 20.000 people to the island throughout the ship cruise season.
