The economic spinoff benefit to Victoria of the 2010 Olympics just increased by more than $1 million, as Victoria Shipyards has landed a dry-dock assignment for the idle Norwegian Star cruise ship.

The Star was to have been anchored in Vancouver to act as a hotel during the Olympics but Newwest Special Projects, the charter company that planned to bring the ship to the city, cancelled the plan, citing poor sales.

That left the ship with nowhere to go and nothing to do.

"It's an unexpected bonus -- one man's woe is another man's gold," said Victoria Shipyards manager Malcolm Barker. "Unfortunately, Vancouver doesn't have the vessel but, certainly, it will be a benefit to Victoria."

Barker estimates the dry dock and refit work on the 1,108-room ship will be worth in excess of $1 million and employ more than 250 workers -- who would otherwise be unemployed at this time of year -- for two weeks.

And then there is the money the 800 crew will spend during the time the ship is tied up.

"The crew works during the day on the ship doing what they normally do while in dry dock, and [in the] evening they have time off and can go and visit the local scenery," he said.

Tourism Victoria has estimated the average cruise ship crew member spends in excess of $50 US per day while in the city.

"This is good for the community, good for Victoria Shipyard, good for the workforce and good for NCL (Norwegian Cruise Lines)," Barker said.

He said that when the charter cancelled its booking in Vancouver, the ship, which is normally based in Los Angeles, was basically stranded as it had a mini-cruise booked to leave Vancouver March 2 following the Olympics.

"NCL was left with a ship in Vancouver for 16 or 17 days during the Olympics with nothing to do."

It was too difficult to arrange a charter route somewhere else, he said, so the only other option was to do a "pre-emptive dry docking" if they could find space.

"With a few little bits of changes here and there, we were able to open up a two-week window for them to dry-dock the vessel," said Barker, noting that will enable NCL to skip the procedure next year.

Details are still being worked out on just what work will be done to the vessel, which will arrive in Victoria waters Friday before entering the dry dock Feb. 15.

The ship will later travel to Los Angeles and its run on the Mexican Riviera.

aduffy@tc.canwest.com

This story has been updated with corrected information.