The world’s first discovery yacht Scenic Eclipse was set to debut last August, before being delayed until January, then again until April. Now it has been postponed for a third time until August.
Scenic has blamed the year-long delay on the financial challenges at the shipyard in Croatia where Scenic Eclipse is being built.
During Scenic’s Night of Stars awards night in Sydney last month we were told that workers at the Ulanik shipyard were owed wages and had therefore been taking strike action.
With many workers leaving the shipyard, Scenic set up its own workforce employing over 100 specialists workers to assist in completing the 228-passenger vessel.
Guests booked on Scenic Eclipse’s earlier departures are being offered full refunds and “reasonable associated travel costs”. They are also being offered a 25% discount on re-bookings.
In a statement, Scenic said they were “deeply sorry for the inconvenience these delays to the launch of Scenic Eclipse have caused to our guests”.
Scenic Eclipse I pool deck
“As a company we have done everything possible to complete the ship within the time limits that were set previously, but a series of events that are outside our control have put us in a position where we must delay.”
Scenic
In better news, Italian Shipyard Fincantieri has been announced as the new owners of the Uljanik Group.
Scenic said it was confident that the new owners would bring stability and focus to current and future ship builds.
For this reason, Scenic has signed a letter of intent with the consortium that will lead the shipyard to set up a new Discovery Yacht division within the restructured Uljanik group.
This new joint venture will be fully focused on completing Scenic Eclipse and on expediting the build of Scenic Eclipse II, as well as progressing development of the next generations of Scenic’s Discovery Yachts.
- READ: NIGHT OF STARS: Who won at Scenics’ awards night + Scenic Eclipse update
- READ: DELAYED: Scenic delays Scenic Eclipse launch to April