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Most
of the people with whom I voyaged on a week-long
cruise through the Western Caribbean last week
seemed quite happy doing the things that one
normally does on cruise ships: taking in the shows,
shopping in the duty-free stores and consuming fabulous
quantities of food and drink. I'll confess to a bit
of over-eating myself, not to mention excessive
consumption of fruity cocktails. But my mission
wasn't to indulge myself: It was to observe a unique experiment in human settlement patterns.
The
Westerdam is, as crew members of the 935-foot cruise
ship are prone to liken it, a floating city. The
14-deck vessel houses a crew of 800 and up to 1,900
passengers. All of these people squeeze into a
structure that takes up roughly one third of the
surface area of a city block in my old neighborhood,
the Fan, in Richmond -- a patch of real estate that
normally would house maybe 40 inhabitants. In other
words, the Westerdam packs in people at 70 times
the density of a compact urban neighborhood.
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MS
Westerdam (photo credit: Holland-America Line)
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The
analogy with a land-based town or city is imprecise, of course.
The Holland-America Line, operator of the Westerdam, does not pretend to run schools, operate
hospitals or support a government. Perhaps most
important, there is nowhere on the ship for any of
the 1,700 passengers to work. A 75-cent-per-minute
charge for Internet access and the paucity of cell
phone towers in the middle of the Caribbean Sea
effectively cuts the passengers off from their
livelihoods. But most other elements of a fully
functioning society are extant.
And
somehow,
it all works. The passengers, of course, are plied
with gourmet meals, treated to lavish entertainment
and waited upon hand and foot for a week, and then
they depart. No one really expects
them to grumble. But the Westerdam
creates a community for the crew and staff as well,
most of whom work long hours and live on the ship virtually non-stop
through the length of contracts that typically
run 10 months or more.
From
my observations, I've concluded that the Westerdam offers two important
lessons for anyone wanting to build a prosperous and
sustainable society. The first: Don't fear density.
The second: It pays to be green.
From
an urban planner's perspective, the most striking features
of the cruise vessel are its density, its mix of
uses and its pure pedestrian orientation. If the
Westerdam were arrayed like modern American suburbs,
all the staterooms would be segregated at one end of
the ship, all the amenities would be clustered at
the other end, and half the space would be dedicated
to transportation corridors for the conveyance and
parking of electric buggies to move people between
the two. In other words, it
would be hopelessly inefficient.
But
the Westerdam makes density palatable if not
downright delectable.
The first trick is creating a
pedestrian-oriented community. In
some American cities, nearly half the surface area
is consumed by freeways, interchanges, roads,
driveways and parking lots -- all for the purpose of
moving and storing automobiles. On the Westerdam,
there are no automobiles, and none of that space is
needed.
Any location of the
ship is readily accessible by foot from any other
location via two ship-length corridors, various
cross-corridors, two stairwells and a dozen
elevators. The longest trip between two points would
take no longer than five minutes for an active adult
-- 10 minutes for a little old, blue-haired lady on
a walker.
The
ship is equipped with additional passages accessible
only to the crew. A dozen or more tons of
food are required to feed everyone each week. From what I could tell, the crew
transports boxes of food, water bottles, apparel,
toiletries and incidentals on hand carts. Carts are
not an efficient mode of conveyance when the
distance to be covered is measured in miles, but
they perform the job quite nicely when the distance is
measured in meters.
The
second trick to making density work is permitting
mixed uses. Like a
small town, the Westerdam combines
a variety of (if you'll permit the expression) "land" uses:
residential, retail, commercial and industrial.
Within the space of less than a city block the
ship blends staterooms, administrative offices,
shops and
entertainment amenities: a performance stage, a movie theater,
a casino, swimming pools, an exercise
facility and spa, restaurants and, of course, ubiquitous
bars. The ship even contains an industrial zone -- the massive
machinery that propels the ship, generates
electricity and recycles the waste water dwells
under the waterline on the bottom deck -- as well as
a connecting infrastructure of passageways.
A
passenger can find his every necessity accommodated within a
brief walk from any point within the ship.
Although some voyagers on the Westerdam choose to go on shore
excursions, just as city dwellers choose to visit
other cities, there is no compelling need to. Most people seem to enjoy the
cruise experience at sea just as
much as in port.
The
third trick to making density an asset is to
plant pleasant public spaces throughout the vessel.
The staterooms are tiny, useful mainly for sleeping,
showering and changing clothes. But the cramped
space of the living quarters is more than offset by
abundant common areas. I was struck by how easy it
was to find a quiet corner of the ship to spend time
alone and read. My favorite space was the
"promenade" deck, a wooden track that ran
the 1/3-mile circumference of the ship. There were
ample lounge chairs where one could sit quietly. For
the more convivial passengers, there were a
multitude of
locations elsewhere on the ship suitable for chatting, eating, drinking and playing
cards.
One
could argue that conditions acceptable to passengers
living aboard the Westerdam for a week of pampering
would not be
as enticing to crew and staff living aboard the ship
for a full year. I posed that question to two
members of the staff I got to know.
"For
the first month, you feel a little crowded. But you
get used to it," says Jun Marasigan, a guest
relations staffer from the Philippines who has lived
on board the ship for two months. "If I need
privacy, my cabin mate will get out. But normally I
don't need any privacy. My life is open for
everyone."
Hilary
Gavin, a native South African and fitness director,
also found that life on board the cruise ship took
some acclimation. "My first week I felt really
claustrophobic," she admits. But after 10 months
she's thoroughly adapted. "Now I feel complete
freedom. ... This ship is now my world."
Living
and working in such close quarters, the crew and
staff become a community. Says Gavin:
"You get very close to people. You get to know
people inside out, you can’t hide anything. You
can’t be anonymous on board. The people you work
with become your friends."
Even
so, she says, she still requires some "me"
time. Then she retreats to her cabin, or goes up to
the top deck. "There are lots of places where
there isn't anyone else around. ... You can lie on
your back on Deck 11 drinking wine and watching the
stars – how many people get to do that?"
Jan
Van Aalst is one of the senior officers of the
Westerdam. His job is reducing the ship's impact on
the environment. "We take people to some of the
most breath-taking
places on earth," he says. "The
ocean is our home. The ocean is where we work.
Keeping the ocean safe and clean is good for the
environment, our guests, the crew, for
business."
A
former Royal Netherlands Navy officer, bank manager
and instructor at the Dutch maritime academy, Van
Aalst pursues his job zealously. Nothing is too
small or insignificant to escape his attention. Does
the Westerdam, he asks, really need to light up its
decks with so many lights? Does it really
need to wash every towel every day? How can he
encourage
passengers to recycle their camera batteries?
One
of Van Aalst's biggest challenges is disposing of
solid waste. Each person on board generates between
five and nine pounds day. That adds up to about
25,000 pounds -- more than 12 tons -- of garbage
weekly. Every pound of waste must be recycled or
properly disposed of, and Van Aalst has to account
for it all. His records must withstand scrutiny in
environmental compliance audits.
As
a Dutchman, Van Aalst is accustomed to recycling.
"In Holland, we separate all the waste."
The Dutch don't just sort paper from plastic and
glass -- they separate the brown bottles from the
green ones and white ones! Van Aalst is trying to
impart that recycling ethic to the crew and
passengers of the Westerdam. If
it means sorting trash for three different recycling
bins, including one for batteries, so be it. If it
means dispensing with paper coffee cups, plastic
lids and plastic stirrers, so be it.
Biodegradable
food waste, says Van Aalst, is ground up, mixed with
water and discharged at sea under strict guidelines.
"Give the fishes back to the fishes." But
dumping plastic into the water? That's a major
no-no. "If you throw a plastic bottle into the
sea, it will be there a half a million years from
now."
Another
huge challenge is recycling "blackwater,"
the name given to the effluent from toilets and the
infirmary. The Westerdam treats the blackwater by running it through micro-pore filtration,
bacterial digestion, chemical treatment and
ultraviolet radiation. What comes out, says Van
Aalst, "would meet the standards for drinking
water in many countries."
The
Westerdam also treats "gray water" from
showers, sinks and pantries the same as it does
blackwater.
Additionally, the
ship runs another 2,200 gallons per day on average
of bilge water, which results from the condensation
on the machines. After running through oil-water
separators, the bilge water must contain no more
than 15 parts of oil per million.
The result of all the effort: The massive Westerdam has less
environmental impact than a fishing boat with a
leaky outboard motor. Even in
Third World ports of call
where the water is covered with an oily sheen, says
Van Aalst, "I check every day
to make sure not one drop is coming out of this
vessel."
Van
Aalst also measures the emissions from the
Westerdam's smokestacks. He can tell you the levels
of SOx and NOx to the parts per million. But there's
one thing he can't tell you, and this surprised me.
What is the Westerdam's carbon footprint? Obviously,
the top brass at Holland-America has not been
reading up on its Al Gore, for Van Aalst does not
monitor the emissions of carbon dioxide, widely
deemed to be a contributor to global warming. But
CO2 is something the company should measure, if only
to polish its environmental credentials. Given
the ability to pack so many people into such a small
space, the Westerdam undoubtedly is highly energy
efficient, and I'm willing to wager that its per
capita CO2 emissions are pretty low.
Van
Aalst is a practical man. He is not what he calls
"an environmental freak." He sees
environmental protection going hand in hand with
energy conservation, cutting costs and operating the
cruise ship profitably. Still, he believes the
Westerdam offers some valuable lessons to the rest
of the world.
"We
are doing better [with the environment] than the
average town or village," he says.
Holland-America sets goals, measures progress
towards those goals, and then ratchets them higher.
Land-bound communities, he suggests, could do the
same.
"Every
year, we have two or three big objectives, and two
or three concern the environment," Van Aalst
says. Currently, the ship is trying to cut its fuel
usage by two percent. One way to do that is to be
more selective about putting out the stabilizers
that dampen the pitch during rough weather.
Stabilizers make the trip more comfortable for the
passengers and reduce the risk of stumbles and accidents, but
they reduce fuel efficiency. It's a tough trade-off.
Another conservation measure is to run the ship's
five diesel propellers in more fuel-efficient
configurations. The trade-off there is speed and
travel time. Saving fuel may require shorter visits
at ports of call.
The
ship's engines also supply electricity, and Van
Aalst is hyper-attentive to every light left on
unnecessarily -- he has submitted a
proposal to reconfigure the lighting circuits that
would allow more flexibility in turning off unneeded
lights -- and every door that blows open and
lets air-conditioned air escape the ship. So far
this year, Van Aalst says proudly, the ship is meeting
its fuel conservation objectives.
Energy
conservation is a win-win: It saves the company
money while reducing the environmental impact of the
ship and its 2,700 inhabitants. Like the Westerdam,
American communities should implement continuous
improvement methodologies for finding economical,
cost-effective ways to recycle and cut energy
consumption. Conservation needs to become a personal
habit and a community priority.
Conservation
must go beyond recycling of solid waste and
treatment of waste water. As the Westerdam
demonstrates, it is possible to live well by
creating pedestrian communities, embracing density
and trading some private space for public.
That's
a lesson that Virginians desperately need to learn.
We lavish ourselves with space -- space for cars, for
yards, for houses. At tremendous expense, we have replicated the functions of public places
inside our private houses in the form of dedicated
rooms for dining, entertaining, watching television,
even exercising. Not only do we construct this private space
at great expense, we must continually supply it with
lighting, heating, air conditioning and other
energy-intensive applications.
Life
on the Westerdam may seem an extreme example of
human settlement patterns, and not one readily
replicated in the "real" world. Not many
people could afford the price tag of roughly $1,000
per person per week that it takes to live the luxury
liner lifestyle. But as energy costs rise and the
imperative to conserve becomes more acute, we may
find the Westerdam an example well worth
emulating.
-- March
21, 2007
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