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In 2009, a new cruise pier opened at Labadee Haiti, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.'s (RCL) private destination. The cruise pier was the only port of call on the inaugural voyage of the Oasis of the Seas, the world's largest cruise ship. The inaugural sailing was announced 12 months prior to the voyage, so the construction timeline was critical. To meet this deadline, final design and construction were completed on an accelerated design-bid-build schedule in less than 16 months.The remote location on the northeast coast of Haiti provided a logistical challenge for both material and personnel. Construction was additionally constrained in that the active cruise destination had to remain operational for the Cruise Line's fleet during the entire construction. The pier design incorporated the new, more stringent seismic and wave load requirements stipulated in the International Building Code. In addition, the design team conducted feasibility and environmental studies, geotechnical investigations, and breakwater design.The design was tendered at 60% to allow Contractor involvement in the final design process and mitigate the need for numerous RFIs and Change Requests. Orion Marine Group was awarded the construction contract. As a requirement of the Haitian Government, RCL provided a concrete batch plant on the premises, which was operated by a Haitian company. Having the design engineer's personnel on site for extended site visits facilitated design changes necessitated by unexpected conditions. This paper will discuss the accelerated time frame and difficulties constructing a pier in a highly seismic, remote location, with challenging soil conditions. 1028 Ports 2013

A new pile-supported pier was designed to provide cruise ship access to an onshore resort in Labadee, on the north side of Haiti. The project consisted of an access trestle connecting to a pier with mooring dolphins extending offshore to support berthing and mooring. The structures were supported on steel pipe piles, designed to resist compression loads due to operations, horizontal loads from waves and seismic activity, and uplift loads from wave forces and as a result of the horizontal loads in multi-pile groups.The initial design was based on the results of a limited field exploration. However, during construction it was found that the site conditions varied from the initial field exploration, and a more detailed exploration was undertaken during construction to better evaluate the site conditions. The primary bearing layer for much of the structure was found to be a limerock (i.e., weathered limestone), which was noted to have voids and clay-filled cavities that provided minimal pile resistance.Pile Dynamic Analysis (PDA) testing was conducted along with CAPWAP analyses to estimate as-driven pile capacities. The results of the testing indicated unit skin resistance values much lower than values typically reported for materials with similar blowcounts. Though it was expected that this material would have low unit resistance values given the literature on pile behavior in calcareous soils, the resistance values were still much lower than anticipated.The final design consisted of using a combination of splicing and driving the piles deeper, as well as drilling out the inside of the piles and backfilling with concrete to force a plug in the pile as well as provide additional uplift resistance due to the dead weight of the concrete. PROJECT BACKGROUNDThe project site is located on the north side of the island of Hispaniola, in the country of Haiti, about 6 miles west of Cap-Haitien (Figure 1). The project consisted 1285 Ports 2013

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