Photos and Video - 'Allure of the Seas' Clearing Storebelt Bridge

In the video above shot on October 30, Royal Caribbean’s Allure of the Seas passes under Denmark’ Storebaelt Bridge on her maiden voyage from the STX Finland shipyard in Turku, to her homeport in Port Everglades, FL. At a height of approximately 73 meters, the vessel was too tall to squeeze through the 65 meters of clearance that the bridge provides.

In order to overcome this obstacle, the Allure of the Seas is equipped with a telescopic smokestack system, allowing her crew to retract the smokestacks into the ship. To meet the required 9.14 meters of draft, the Allure of the Seas has two ballast tanks, one all the way forward and one aft, which will add approximately 4,000 tons of ballast, increasing her draft.

Fortunately, Allure of the Seas successfully passed under the bridge with about 20in (50cm) clearance between the bridge and the top of the ship according to the Daily Mail.

M/S Allure of the Seas is sister ship to Royal Carribean’s Oasis of the Seas and, at 360 meters long, can accomodate nearly 6,000 passengers and 2,000 crew.

Continue reading after the jump for some video provided by Royal Carribean and links to some more good photos.

Here’s a cool timelapse provided by Flickr user Kate Chaston