Creation from "zero" to a dream cruise ship.
Chapter I. The "Dreams" of Two Presidents for Cruise Liners
The Retirement of the Hikawa Maru and the Romance Stolen from the Sea
Before the war, NYK had many overseas routes to North America, Europe, and other destinations, and many of the world's famous people of the time used its services. NYK had many historic passenger and cargo ships on the world's oceans. As far back as 1922, there is a record of Einstein and his wife boarding the "Kitano Maru" from Marseille, France (October 5) to Kobe (November 17).
The 11,600-ton Hikawa Maru, which made its maiden voyage in 1930, was in service between Yokohama and Seattle for 30 years before and after the war, and in 1932, the comedy king Chaplin boarded the ship. In 1932, the ship welcomed a variety of passengers, including Prince and Princess Chichibu, Fulbright students, and the Takarazuka Revue. While the ship had the glamorous aspect of a passenger ship, it was also commissioned as a hospital ship during the Pacific War, and was demobilized immediately after the war's end. In 1953, the Hikawa Maru was once again used as a cargo ship, and has remained a coveted "flower of the North Pacific. The Hikawa Maru was a very important ship in the history of NYK's passenger liners.
However, in August 1960, the Hikawa Maru was sadly retired. Exactly 30 years had passed since its maiden voyage. Although there was a 12-year interruption during and after the war, the ship made 238 crossings through the waves of the North Pacific Ocean, supporting the journeys of some 25,000 people. In the year following her retirement, the ship was berthed in Yokohama, her birthplace, as part of the "Yokohama Port 100th Anniversary Commemorative Project. Standing in a corner overlooking Yamashita Park from Yokohama Grand Pier, where cruise ships from around the world dock, Hikawa Maru has long been a symbol of the Port of Yokohama and has formed the image of "cruise ships" for the Japanese people.
Although NYK withdrew from the cruise ship business with the retirement of the Hikawa Maru, it was also a time when the company sought a plan to build a cruise ship that would become the "post-Hikawa Maru.
The following description is found in the "Under Two Flags" section of NYK's Centennial History.
_____ Hikawa Maru Retirement? The rumor of the Hikawa Maru's retirement was reportedly received like a tidal wave of voices from both inside and outside of the company, asking the company to somehow build cruise ships once again. Should NYK continue to operate cruise ships or should it choose the path of withdrawal? That is why there was a time in Europe when one could not be considered a first-class shipping company unless one had a luxury cruise ship running on the open seas. Anyone with money can own a tanker. This is because it is a "thing" itself. However, a cruise ship cannot be bought with money. It is the "people" themselves. However, continuing to operate a cruise ship is a way of passing on culture (technology). To discontinue a cruise ship means to abort it. In Japan, NYK is the only company that can pass it on. ___
As it happens, in 1953, seven years before the retirement of the Hikawa Maru, the Tourism Business Council took up the issue of building Pacific cruise ships and brought it to a Cabinet decision. Then, in 1959, the bipartisan "Pacific Cruise Ship Roundtable" was formed, and Kakuei Tanaka was appointed its chairman.
With international events such as the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 and the Osaka World Exposition in 1970 coming up, there were growing calls in both the public and private sectors for a new cruise ship as a symbol of Japan as a maritime nation. NYK seized this opportunity and submitted to Chairman Tanaka the "Trans-Pacific Passenger Ship Construction Plan Related Documents," a new shipbuilding plan that the company had prepared in 1959. According to the above-mentioned "Under Two Flags," the contents were as follows.
The plan called for a ship of __31,000 tons, sailing speed of 26 knots (*1 knot = 1.852 km/h), maximum speed of 31 knots, and a passenger capacity of 1,200. Two of these vessels will be deployed on the San Francisco and Los Angeles routes. The estimated cost of the two vessels is 25-30 billion yen.
(Omitted).
The Japan Shipowners' Association, the Shipbuilders' Association of Japan, and other industry groups have submitted requests for the construction of passenger ships. The Japanese American Chamber of Commerce in Honolulu and Los Angeles also sent a letter of request to the prime minister.
The Ministry of Transport (now the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism), with the strong backing of Chairman Tanaka and these requests, drew up a budget plan for FY1959 that included 1 billion yen for the general account and 1.375 billion yen for the fiscal investment and loan. If all went according to plan, the first ship was to be completed in July 1963 and the second in July 1964.
However, a natural disaster really made the dream plan remain a dream.
In September 1959, a ferocious typhoon hit the Kii Peninsula and the Tokai region, leaving more than 5,000 people dead or missing. It was the Isewan Typhoon. Eisaku Sato, the Minister of Finance at the time, decided to allocate the budget allocated for passenger ships to the restoration of damage caused by the Ise Bay typhoon. Thus, the new shipbuilding plan went with the winds of the Ise Bay typhoon.
The leaders of NYK had no choice but to decide that the era of passenger ships had passed in the wake of the jet plane era. They decided to retire the Hikawa Maru and withdraw from the cruise ship business. The harsh reality of economic rationality had finally robbed the sea of its romance.
Fateful Encounter with NYK President Kimio Miyaoka
Kimio Miyaoka, then president of NYK, had a fateful encounter with the Hikawa Maru 15 years before she was retired. His grandfather became an instructor at the Naval Academy during the Civil War (1877) and taught Kantaro Suzuki, who later became prime minister, and Mitsumasa Yonai. My uncle worked on passenger ships for Osaka Merchant Marine and was stationed in Buenos Aires, South America for a long time. From an early age, his grandfather and uncle often took him to ship-viewing ceremonies and to see Osaka Shosen's passenger ships.
Mr. Miyaoka entered the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo from Shizuoka High School, but it was the middle of the Pacific War. Soon after, he was mobilized as a student and assigned to the Navy, where he was to go on a suicide mission to Okinawa as a navigator. He boarded the destroyer Hibiki, which was escorting the battleship Yamato. However, the Hibiki was damaged by lightning shortly after launching and was forced to drop out of the escort group of destroyers. You never know what will turn out to be your lucky day. The "YAMATO" met a spectacular end, and her escorts shared her fate. The "Hibiki," which had been undergoing repairs in Kure, survived.
The "Hibiki" then headed for Maizuru Harbor to escort cargo ships repatriated by the Kwantung Army from the Korean Peninsula. In Maizuru, Mr. Miyaoka encountered the most beautiful white ship he had ever seen. It was the Hikawa Maru, which at the time was on duty as a hospital ship. The Hibiki laid alongside the Hikawa Maru and was refueled. Mr. Miyaoka and other officers were invited to the Hikawa Maru, where they were given a bath and were served sumptuous meals that were rarely seen during wartime. For Mr. Miyaoka, the experience on NYK's Hikawa Maru left a strong impression and impression on his mind that he would never forget.
After the war ended, Mr. Miyaoka returned to school and graduated in 1948. He then took the employment examination for NYK. His encounter with the Hikawa Maru in Maizuru Harbor was a major motivation for his decision.
When Mr. Miyaoka joined NYK, the Hikawa Maru was the only passenger ship left in Japan. Thirteen years later, NYK completely withdrew from the cruise ship business. How shocking this must have been for Mr. Miyaoka, who joined NYK after the Hikawa Maru.
A quarter of a century had passed since the Hikawa Maru disappeared from the Pacific.
In 1984, Mr. Miyaoka became president of NYK. The following year, the company celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding, and as it approached this milestone year, it launched "NYK21," its long-term strategy for the new century. And as an extension of this strategy, the company dreamed of "launching a cruise ship business. Although 25 years had passed since the retirement of the Hikawa Maru, Mr. Miyaoka must not have forgotten about it for a single moment. It was his dream, and NYK's dream for the 21st century, to build a luxury cruise ship "even better than the Hikawa Maru" and sail around the world's oceans.
The following is an excerpt from an interview with Mr. Miyaoka that appeared serially in the Yomiuri Shimbun ("My Road") from June 13, 1993.
When I gave up the idea of becoming a newspaper reporter because of my mother's opposition, NYK came to my mind. I was deeply impressed by the swan-like beauty of the "Hikawa Maru" I saw in Maizuru harbor during the war.
("Reporter's Question: ...... Mr. Miyaoka has resumed the cruise ship business after a 30-year absence.
(......If I recall correctly, there was some opposition to the idea at first.)
He said, "That's right. ()You must have had some opposition at first. (Laughs.) But when I asked the opinions of younger people, some said, "Britain and Norway are getting into cruise ships, so if we don't do it now, we will lose our chance. It was almost a 50-50 split. It was a time when the yen was strong and the situation was unstable, so I was very worried, but I decided that if half of the employees were in favor, I would give this a try. ____ ___
In fact, Mr. Miyaoka's decision to join NYK was vehemently opposed by his uncle, who had already retired from Osaka Merchant Marine. He was told, "Even if you work until retirement, Japanese shipping will probably never recover to its old level.
Mr. Yotaro Iida, president of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, looks back on those days.
When Kentaro Kawamura, who succeeded Mr. Miyaoka and Mr. Nemoto as president of NYK, passed away suddenly, Mr. Yotaro Iida (then president of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Mr. Yotaro Iida of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (at that time, when he was an advisor to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) mourned Mr. Kawamura's death in a memorial book entitled "Kazehatami: Memories of the Construction of Modern Luxury Cruise Ships". In the book, President Iida's passion for cruise ships can be seen.
__As a student living in Yokohama, I watched ships coming in and out of the harbor from Harbor View Hill and thought that when peace came, the era of cruise ships would surely come. However, after joining the company, I was put in charge of a different department.
Time passed, and I unexpectedly became president of MHI in 1985. The so-called "Plaza Accord" caused the exchange rate from 240 yen to the dollar to fluctuate to 160 yen in one year. It was very difficult for the new president, who had no experience in asamitsu shipbuilding, to get the "red ship" under construction at the Nagasaki Shipyard and Machinery Works, the company's main shipyard. The people of Nagasaki were all worried about whether the new president would be able to get the "red ship" afloat and in operation. In such a difficult situation, he suddenly thought to himself, "Yes, let's build a passenger ship, which I dreamed of in the past. It would be a quick way to persuade NYK, which had a long history of doing business with Mitsubishi. Moreover, the president, Kimio Miyaoka, knew the heart of painting. Fortunately, Mr. Miyaoka is also a Tokyo Prefectural First Grade School graduate and a chic of the same age as myself. Thinking that "the sooner the better, the better," I immediately offered to build him a cruise ship.
The response, however, was surprisingly cool. NYK's view was that building a cruise ship in Japan today would not attract customers. President Miyaoka was accompanied by Kentaro Kawamura, a smart and articulate general manager of the planning department. At that time, the question was whether cruise ships would really be viable in Japan.
The conversation was not going anywhere, but it took about a year to come to a positive conclusion. How much would it cost for NYK to build a passenger ship? How far would NYK be willing to go in order to undertake the construction? After negotiations between Iida and Miyaoka, both old hands with many dreams, and Kawamura, who was 10 years younger than Iida, the three of us began to discuss the matter, and within a short time we had received orders for the Crystal Harmony, a 50,000-ton luxury cruise ship, and the slightly smaller Asuka.
We later tried to win orders for the "Crystal Symphony," the same type as the "Crystal Harmony," but had to abandon the project due to the foreign exchange market.
However, looking back now, the secret stories of building passenger ships that Mr. Miyaoka and Mr. Kawamura taught me will remain as unforgettable memories. I am deeply moved by the graceful appearance of the modern cruise ship, which is the culmination of all the technology we have accumulated, and I am reminded once again of every single frame of the construction process, which was carried out in silence. ____
NYK and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries: The "bond of manhood" between two presidents
I believe that NYK's entry into the cruise ship business was made possible by the strong will to "build the world's most advanced cruise ship in Japan," a promise made by the two men, then NYK president Kimio Miyaoka, who wanted to operate cruise ships, and then Mitsubishi Heavy Industries president Yotaro Iida, who wanted to build the ships.
In Japan's shipbuilding industry, which is suffering from a shipbuilding recession, we want to somehow overcome this and improve our image. This was all Mr. Iida of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was thinking about every day. Mr. Miyaoka also used to say at the time, "Now, Mr. Iida can cooperate with us. Mr. Miyaoka always said, "Now, Mr. Iida will cooperate with us.
The resonance of Mr. Miyaoka's and Mr. Iida's passion. Without this harmony, NYK would never have been able to launch its cruise ship business in the U.S. market.
On the other hand, Mr. Miyaoka also believed that it was not necessary to stick to Japanese shipyards for the construction of new cruise ships. In fact, he was even concerned that Japanese shipyards, which had not built passenger ships for a long time, would have the know-how to do so. It was then that Mr. Iida came to visit Mr. Miyaoka. Mr. Iida had already received information that NYK was moving forward with the construction of passenger ships under Mr. Miyaoka's direction. Mr. Miyaoka and Mr. Iida had known each other for a long time and met frequently at meetings. It seems that Mr. Iida's purpose was to ask Mr. Miyaoka if he would allow MHI to build a new ship.
I heard that Mr. Iida was motivated to join MHI because he wanted to build a luxury cruise ship. The year was 1985, one year later than Mr. Miyaoka, who became president. The year of his appointment was 1985, one year later than that of Mr. Miyaoka, who became president of MHI. Unlike when Mr. Iida joined Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, there was no atmosphere within the company or in Japan at that time to build passenger ships.
Nevertheless, Mr. Iida did not give up, and he personally went around to shipping companies to obtain orders for passenger ships. MOL ordered the 23,000-ton "Fuji Maru," which was also built by NYK. This may have been one of the factors that prompted NYK to restart its cruise ship business.
However, Mr. Iida was not satisfied with "Fuji Maru. It seems that his biggest target was NYK. After all, NYK had a history of building passenger ships with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries before the war. It must have been Mr. Iida's dream to build a world-class luxury cruise ship for NYK. At that time, NYK had decided to open a cruise ship preparation office under the leadership of Mr. Miyaoka. It was impossible for Mr. Iida not to get excited.
One day, not long after he went to Mr. Miyaoka and said, "We would love to build a new ship for you. I later heard that Mr. Iida himself delivered a model of a passenger ship to Mr. Miyaoka. The model contained the message, "We would like to build a ship of this model, what do you think? Needless to say, the model contained the message, "We would like to build a ship of this model, how would you like it?
When Mr. Miyaoka saw the model, he was not convinced.
It was a one-meter-long model of the Asama Maru II, a slightly updated version of the Asama Maru, a passenger ship built by NYK before World War II. He said, "It's hard to ask such an old-fashioned company to do such a thing. Mr. Miyaoka and his colleagues at NYK had already moved away from the prewar cruise ships like the Asama Maru, and had envisioned a modern cruise ship like the ones used in the United States and Europe. However, is Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' idea still the Asama Maru...?
The passion of these two presidents is detailed in "Voyage of Brilliance" (Sanae Sato).
It also introduces the "Asama Maru II," which Mr. Miyaoka laughed at.
President __Iida is going to NYK to pick up an order for a cruise ship, and he says he will bring a model of the ship as a souvenir. The order to design a replica of the ship was immediately sent to Nagasaki.
The engineers at the Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries wanted to create a new type of luxury cruise ship with a streamlined design and no smokestacks. However, there were internal complaints about the design. In particular, Kentaro Aikawa (later president of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries), who had been researching passenger ships with his subordinates when he was head of the Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works even before the idea of passenger ships came up, was adamantly opposed.
He said, "This kind of ship is no good. Mitsubishi builds luxury cars, not sports cars. Look at the Asama Maru. If you take the chimney out of the Asama Maru, it won't look good. Such a half-joking chimney is not good enough. Mr. Miyaoka is an old-fashioned person, and he would not like it unless the chimney was upright and had a double pull," he said. In the end, they replaced it with a majestic old-style passenger ship model with the Asama Maru in mind, which President Iida had to take with him.
Of course, the "Asama Maru II" was not the only thing that caused Mr. Miyaoka and the other members of NYK's cruise ship business to have concerns about Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. At the time, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was too little knowledgeable about modern cruise ships. NYK had already considered the Baltuguira Shipyard in Finland as a prime candidate for the construction of a new ship, and had already requested a design estimate. The two companies differed greatly in the content of their design quotations. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' estimate was fatally high.
Mr. Miyaoka said to President Iida.
Mitsubishi is apparently obsessed with the image of the Asama Maru, so we will get quotes from European shipyards as well, so please be aware of that.
Iida, flustered, tried to dissuade him.
If you do that, Iwasaki Yataro will be forced to leave the shipyard. If you do that, the ghost of Yataro Iwasaki will appear at Mr. Miyaoka's bedside when he sleeps at night. In fact, Yataro Iwasaki created Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK Line) in order to establish a shipping company. Shipping and shipbuilding go hand in hand, and yet the shipping company had European shipyards build its ships. Yataro Iwasaki would have risen from his grave if he had ordered even a passenger ship.
It was no longer a bitter pill to swallow. After this, however, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is said to have begun intense, tearful research, second only to modern cruise liners. All in order to win orders for new ships from Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK).
Not wanting to lose to Western shipping companies and MOL
The environment surrounding NYK at the time was one of unprecedented deficits in the world of container transport, NYK's core business. To enter the cruise ship business under such circumstances, which required even greater investment and without accumulated knowledge, must have seemed insane to the other executives.
After the decision was made to move forward with this project, Mr. Miyaoka invited us and other U.S. executives to a private room at Imahan, a restaurant in the basement of a building in Yurakucho. At that table, he often shared with us his thoughts on the decision he had made in his heart to enter the cruise ship business.
He said, "When the containership business (NYK's top priority business) was in the red, the decision to enter the cruise ship business, which requires a huge investment, could have been made by an old-timer like myself, who had been president (and later chairman). It was not only nostalgia for the Hikawa Maru that prompted him to revive the cruise business, but also the situation of Japanese seafarers suffering from the strong yen (he was carrying out major rationalization) and his awareness of MOL, NYK's longtime rival.
I believe that if the two companies work hard and stimulate each other, the market now dominated by European and U.S. cruise ship operators will be able to capture even a portion of the market as a Japanese cruise ship operator. As a Japanese shipping company, we do not want to be outdone by Western shipping companies. If we miss this opportunity, future opportunities will be far away. Even NYK's current core business, container shipping, may be replaced by cheaper countries. We need to invest now in areas of business that will grow significantly in 30 or 50 years' time," he said.
MOL and NYK have been rivals on the world's oceans since before World War II. While NYK has handled European and North American routes, MOL is famous for its South American routes. In 1973, MOL MII completed its last Brazilian emigrant transport service with the first Nippon Maru (Nippon Maru), which made the round-the-world trip, but then MOL MII established a new company, MOL MII Passenger Ship, which operated the Nippon Maru and "New Sakura Maru" to continue the cruise ship business.
Furthermore, MOL announced the introduction of a new ship, the "Fuji Maru. This new vessel was not the Hikawa Maru-type liner cruise ship that had been envisioned in Japan up to that time, but rather Japan's first "cruise liner" with a strong leisure cruise flavor.
At the time, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines (MOL) had begun to form a number of subsidiaries in the long-distance ferry business, far outstripping NYK. The "Fuji Maru" appeared in the market as if to add to MOL's success. It was not an easy task for NYK to be behind Mitsui O.S.K. Lines in the cruise ship sector as well. The sense of crisis that NYK felt must have been more than "shudder.
At the time, many of NYK's customers in the cargo transport field did not have training centers. There was a reasonable expectation that there would be demand for the use of cruise ships for corporate employee training, incentives, and other business activities. If NYK could build a cruise ship "better than Fuji Maru" by combining charter cruises and leisure cruises, it could compete with MOL on an equal footing. For NYK, this was, in a sense, a project that would bring the company back from the brink.
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