Shipping companies do not always own their vessels outright. An example is Royal Caribbean’s Radiance class cruise ship Brilliance of the Seas, which the company has had on long-term charter from her owner, the HBOS UK banking group. Royal Caribbean has recently raised the finance to terminate the charter and buy the ship outright for $275 million. The lease on the ship was for a period of 25 years from delivery in 2002, and she was one of a number of Royal Caribbean ships operated in this way. The 90,090gt Brilliance of the Seas is one of a quartet of ships built by Meyer at Papenburg between 2001 and 2004, and can take 2,501 passengers. In 2014 she was sailing from Florida to the Western Caribbean.
