MIAMI – As Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas steamed out of port December 7 for the Welcome To Jamrock Reggae Cruise, Nesta Garrick, Abbas Ritscher and the entire team at The Design Oasis were grateful that they would be able to do something, they’d never done before: leave all their fixtures unbagged overnight!

“This was the first time we didn’t have to worry about putting bags over our fixtures at the end of a long day,” said Ritscher, who oversaw the installation of the lighting rig on the ship. “That’s a tremendous time saver.”

Ritscher and his team were able to avoid the hassle of wrapping fixtures in plastic bags, because for the first time, since the cruise began in 2012, the entire rig was made up of IP65 rated units, most prominently the Color STRKE M, Maverick STORM2 BeamWash, and Rogue Outcast 1L Beam from CHAUVET Professional.

“Welcome To Jamrock goes from Miami to Jamacia and is out at sea or in port for five days,” said Ritscher. “Even when the weather is good, you get a lot of moisture in this ocean environment. Having the IP65 rated fixtures is really important.”

The lighting rig for the cruise was designed by Garrick, who also ran the lights for Damian and Stephen Marley, as well as many of the other headliner acts. Kenny Gribbon served as the LD for the other artists. (The cruise featured an array of stars, such as Burning Spear, Ding Dong and  Shabba Ranks.)

Garrick and his team used the IP65 rated rig to cook up a variety of dynamic looks on the open-deck stage, each one reflecting the music and personality of the performers with plenty of aerial beams aimed at the ocean sky, powerful back and audience lighting, and some dazzling pixel effects. The stage was brilliantly colored throughout the five-days of music, sometimes in intense monochromatic palettes, and at others in vivid Rastafarian red, green and gold.

Helping Garrick create his bold looks were 32 Color STRIKE M fixtures, which were flown on upstage truss and positioned around the audience area for side lighting. Drawing on the intense output of the motorized strobe’s tube elements, he was able to cover the entire deck with bright white light at times. During other moments, he relied on pixel effects from the fixture’s face to create captivating and colorful visuals.

Also key to the rig’s visual potency were its 18 Rogue Outcast 1L Beam units, which were positioned at low and high levels on the downstage truss as well as on the downstage deck. Drawing on the fixture’s tight 1.4 degree beam, Garrick was able to use it to create stunning aerial effects from a variety of positions.

From an installation perspective, Ritscher was impressed with fixture’s lightweight compactness. “I really wanted the Outcast 1L for this installation because of its combination of performance and light weight, he said. “We had to rope up these fixtures into position, so the weight was important.”

Adding an extra level of depth and flexibility to the stage were the rig’s 12 Maverick Strom 2 BeamWash fixtures, which were positioned upstage and used as a traditional wash when they weren’t crisscrossing the stage with bold beams and backlighting performers. Personally, I was really impressed with some of the looks created with the Storm 2,” said Ritscher. “This was especially true when Nesta coordinated different reggae colors on the face and the two rings of the fixture.”

Although working the Jamrock cruise is loads of fun, lighting an event on the high seas is not without its challenges, according to Ritscher, who thanked Brian Milligan “for keeping everything working” during the memorable journey. “On a ship there is always wind and weather to contend with,” he said. “There’s not much you can do about that.”

That’s true enough, but with a reliable IP65 rated rig , meeting these challenges has become a whole lot easier.