Passenger Vessels - cruise & excursion

M/V Royal Argosy

Services Provided:

  • Contract/Regulatory Design

GPA delivered the design for the M/V Royal Argosy, a 55-meter USCG inspected luxury dinner ship offering dining cruises in Seattle’s Elliott Bay and Puget Sound. The vessel, built at Nichols Brothers Boat Builders, Inc. of Freeland, Washington, offers two fully equipped galleys, as well as seating accommodations for 800 guests among four separate dining areas. The vessels are quipped with two 700 HP main engines, one 250 HP bow thruster and two 350 HP auxiliary engines, the vessels were designed after the turn-of-the-century Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet vessels.

M/V Cape May Light and Cape Cod Light

Services Provided:

  • Basic Design
  • Contract/Regulatory Design
  • Detailed/Production Design

GPA provided design for the M/V Cape May Light and her sister vessel, the M/V Cape Cod Light. The 91-meter cruise ships were built by Atlantic Marine Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida and can accommodate 224 passengers and 77 crew members. The vessels are equipped with two Schottel 1,970 HP Z-Drives, two 1,825 HP main generators and one 1,000 HP bow tunnel thruster.

Both the M/V Cape May Light and the Cap Cod Light were designed to cruise the U.S. East Coast, Maritime Canada and into the St. Lawrence River and Seaway, as well as Belize, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico and Panama in the winter.

M/V Empress of the North

Services Provided:

  • Basic Design
  • Contract/Regulatory Design
  • Detailed/Production Design

GPA provided the unique design for the M/V Empress of the North, a 109-meter sternwheel overnight excursion vessel for American West Steamboat Company. Now owned by Majestic America Line, the vessel was built by Nichols Brothers Boat Builders in 2002 and now serves Alaska, the Pacific Northwest and the Columbia River. The coastal paddlewheel vessel is ABS classed, SOLAS certified and USCG inspected. The integrated diesel-electric propulsion provides DC electric power to two 2,000 HP propulsion motors driving 360º azimuthing twin propeller Z-Drives, one 1,000 HP paddlewheel motor operating through a right angle reduction gear and one 1,000 HP motor for the pump jet bow thruster.