Capacity Boost For Baltic Trade Bridge

The 4,500 lane-metres of vehicular space and overall deadweight of around 12,780t will introduce a new transport scale on the route across the southern Baltic, while the provision of cabin berths for up to 690 passengers signifies the company’s biggest investment in passenger-carrying tonnage for 40 years. The intervening period has seen a concentration on new generations of ro-ro freight vessels, or trailerships, to serve and expand the DFDS short-sea network in the Baltic, North Sea and Mediterranean.

Powered by four medium-speed diesel engines and capable of sustaining 23 knots, Aura Seaways fulfils EEDI criteria and exercises the scale effect in conjunction with the powering technology and hydrodynamic form to achieve 20% lower CO₂ emissions per trailer than existing DFDS vessels on Baltic service.

A sistership bearing the name Luna Seaways is in hand at Guangzhou, and is also to be assigned to the Baltic traffic, possibly out of Germany on the Kiel/Klaipeda run.

Consultancy Deltamarin was retained for the contract design, basic (approval) and detail design and the Safe Return to Port (SRtP) documentation.

The vehicular payload is borne on three decks and in the lower hold, all access and egress being via the stern ramp at main deck level, with onboard distribution by means of inter-connecting ramps. The maximum freight intake corresponds to some 270 trailers.

The ro-ro decks are fitted with the SAT lashing system, whereby a portable trestle secured to the deck via integral twistlocks connects with the trailer’s fifth wheel kingpin. A trailer made fast using a SAT trestle requires no additional lashing in conditions up to a significant wave height of 4.5m. As befits year-round duty in the Baltic, the ship’s structure meets 1C ice class standards.

Although DFDS is a leading practitioner of two-stroke propulsion in short-sea ro-ro trailerships, four-stroke power was nominated for the ro-pax project. The installation in Aura Seaways, and as specified for Luna Seaways, comprises four Wartsila 46-series diesels producing a total 33,600kW. Exhaust gas aftertreatment plant is incorporated, necessitating particularly large funnel casings, and each vessel has been prepared for future adaptation to LNG fuel, as confirmed by Lloyd’s Register’s Gas Ready(A) notation.

The ships had been ordered in February 2018 at a combined price of DKr 1.75bn, equating to some $131m per vessel at current exchange rates. Delivery dates have slipped by about six months from the originally stipulated requirement, and this has been attributed to the disruptive effects of the pandemic.

MAIN PARTICULARS – Aura Seaways