cruise ships, experts say.

The new ships average 800 feet in length and weigh 100,000 tons. By comparison, most cruise ships today are about 700 feet long and weigh 60,000 to 70,000 tons. The width, or beam, averages 100 to 110 feet, up from 90 to 100 feet today.

And the big new ships carry 1,800 to 2,000 passengers, up from about 1,200 to 1,400 today.

Mrs. Caroline Wills, the Department of Tourism's assistant director for administration, said with the exception of the Royal Majesty in St. George's, agreements for all of Bermuda's regular cruise ship callers would expire in 1999.

Bermuda would watch the situation closely as it negotiated new agreements to succeed those, she said. "That will be a good time for us to be able to review the number of ships versus the number of passengers,'' she said.

If Bermuda decided it did not want to sharply increase its number of cruise ship visitors, the Island could see fewer ships but about the same number of passengers, she said. That was one possibility.

Mr. Russell Southern, who recently retired as deputy director of Marine and Ports, said the trend toward larger ships had obvious implications for St.

George's, where some dredging and a study of the Town Cut was being conducted.

Because Town Cut is narrow, cruise ships now visiting St. George's have difficulty entering the harbour on windy days.

But Hamilton "may well be affected'' by the larger ships as well, Mr.

Southern said.

The city docks could handle one 800-foot ship, but not two such ships, he said. Currently, two cruise ships are normally berthed in Hamilton on weekdays in the summer months.

To date, the largest ship that has berthed in Hamilton is the 720-foot, 55,000-ton Statendam , which visited last summer, said Corporation Secretary Mr. Roger Sherratt. She has capacity for 1,800 passengers.

While Dockyard just gained another 1,000 feet of deep water jetty through the closure of the Royal Navy Base HMS Malabar, Marine and Ports had placed a 600-foot limit on ships entering the south basin, because of a difficult turn to enter the basin, Mr. Southern said. That limit could be re-examined, he said.

The return of the American Bases opened up "all kinds of possibilities'' for the future in coping with the larger ships, Mr. Southern said.

It was possible to move container ships from Hamilton to Marginal Wharf in St.

George's, leaving more space in the City to accommodate cruise ships. There was also a deep-water berth at the US Naval Annex in Southampton.

While the new ships were longer, their draughts were no deeper, and "they can turn on a penny'', Mr. Southern said.

Carnival and P&O are among cruise lines with 100,000-ton ships currently on order. And the Disney company has plans for two 2,000-plus berth ships to be delivered in a few years. For years, Kloster has been talking about a huge 5,000-passenger ship.

The Wor. Henry Hayward, president of cruise ship agent Meyer Agencies Ltd. and Mayor of St. George's, said the berth at Dockyard could handle any of the largest cruise ships.

"In addition to that, I feel there will always be for many years to come enough of the size of vessels that we've got coming here now,'' Mr. Hayward said.