SAIL-FITTED RO-RO FOR TRANSATLANTIC RUN

The 121m newbuild, to be named Canopée, has been booked to the account of Jifmar Guyane and will carry parts of the planned Ariane 6 launcher from Europe to French Guiana on behalf of the ArianeGroup. The unique ship will be operated by Alizes, the joint venture of French offshore contractor Jifmar and Paris-based low-carbon shipping consultancy Zéphyr & Borée.

Neptune Marine is no stranger to Jifmar Offshore Services, having built many of the latter’s fleet of dynamic-positioning, multi-purpose work vessels. Keel laying for the Canopée is set for the second quarter of 2021, with handover due towards the end of 2022. Construction of the hull will take place in Poland, to be followed by outfitting and completion at Neptune’s Hardinxveld-Giessendam yard in the Netherlands.

The vessel’s main propulsion system will be based on an IMO Tier III-compliant engine, but the specification of four automated wing sails is expected to reduce overall fuel consumption and CO² emissions by some 30%. Deployment of the 30m-high Oceanwing sails, to be supplied by the French company Ayro, will be made in concert with a weather routing system to optimise wind energy.

Ayro is a subsidiary of VPLP Design of Paris, which has undertaken the architectural project for the Canopée. Since the ship will have the capability to transport outsized items of cargo in the hold without the use of hatch covers, the Dutch firm Groot Ship Design is lending its expertise in ‘open-top’ vessels to the newbuild development. Detailed engineering studies have been conducted since October, and model hull tank tests are to be implemented within the coming weeks.

Besides the technical challenges imposed in the safe handling and shipment of capital-intensive rocket parts across the Atlantic, the vessel’s design has had to meet the constraints set for access to the port of Pariacabo in French Guiana, the entry point for the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou.

Ariane 6 components built in different European member states of the Ariane programme will be shipped via Bremen, Rotterdam, Le Havre, Bordeaux and Livorno.

Commenting on the direction of the newbuild contract, Jifmar’s CEO Jean-Michel Berud indicated that the choice of a European yard seemed an obvious fit with the ‘DNA’ of the Ariane undertaking, and could attest to Neptune’s track record. Nils Joyeaux, chief executive officer of Alizes’ partner Zéphyr & Borée, said “On the one hand, the option of a European shipyard secures this project in the context of the uncertainty generated by Covid-19 and its repercussions. On the other hand, we hope that this will allow Europe to take the lead in the construction of innovative vessels equipped with wind propulsion.”

Building on the know-how acquired through Ariane 5 and on years of feedback from customers, the Ariane 6 is the latest generation of launchers developed by ArianeGroup and its European industrial partners under the aegis of the European Space Agency (ESA) programme. Ariane 6 has been conceived to offer a very high degree of flexibility and modularity, with the ability to place all types of payload into low earth orbit (LEO), geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), or sun-synchronous orbit (SSO).

Two versions of the launcher are planned, the four-booster Ariane 64 and two-booster Ariane 62.