New Freestyle Cruising Ship for Norwegian Cruise Line Papenburg, 17.06.2006 - In the covered building dock of MEYER WERFT in Papenburg, one of a total of 67 steel blocks of the new 93,500-gt cruise vessel S.670 was put into place on the keel blocks on Saturday. Following an old shipbuilding tradition Mr. Loui Keong Hui, son of Tan Sri Lim, Chairman of Norwegian Cruise Line, laid the traditional "lucky penny", before the block was put down by the yard´s 800-ton crane. The first block weighs more than 350 tons, is 20 m long, 27 m wide and about 9 m high. Norwegian Gem is the seventh ship which is built by MEYER WERFT for the cruise company Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL). It is supposed to be delivered in autumn 2007. This new vessel is one of the world's biggest panmax-cruise ship that has ever been built. The ships length overall will be 294.13 m, the breadth is 32.2 m. The ship will be able to reach a speed of more than 25 knots. 2,384 passengers will be accommodated in 1,188 cabins and will be taken care of by a crew of over 1,000.