Methanol For New German Research Ship

The new vessel will supersede her 1982-built, 30m namesake, assuming the latter’s responsibilities as regards the central pillar of AWI’s coastal sea research, taking on the regular physical, chemical and biological monitoring of the North Sea in the German Bight and around Heligoland.

Uthorn is powered by two modified diesel engines with a combined output of 600kW, delivering energy to a pair of electric motors acting on the twin shaftlines turning controllable pitch propellers. Custom-developed by the Swedish company ScandiNAOS, the methanol-fuelled generators are based on four-stroke, eight-cylinder, 300kW Scania marine engines with intercooler and direct fuel injection. The 200kW AC propulsion motors are of permanent magnet type. AWI plans to use ‘green’ methanol in the main machinery.

The preceding Uthorn consumed around 76t of diesel oil per year on average, resulting in the equivalent of about 243t of CO₂ emissions. Since the methanol to be used in the new ship can be produced using ‘green’ electricity and biomass, the vessel’s emissions of CO₂ will only be as much as was previously removed from the atmosphere. This infers future deployment in the North Sea in virtually climate-neutral manner. Methanol also obviates the release of carbon black particles.

However, as the environmentally-friendly fuel’s energy density is only half that of diesel, the newbuild has had to be designed with much larger bunker tanks than her predecessor, so as to maintain the requisite range.

The technical outfit also features a water-to-water heat pump, said to be the first of its kind to be utilised at sea, and requiring only a fifth of the energy needed for a conventional boiler. The ship’s wherewithal for the various research functions includes dry and wet laboratories, water samplers, two crane booms for trawl nets and scoops, a fish-finding, multi-beam echosounder, and sediment profiler.

The newbuild project has been financially sponsored by the German government to the tune of EUR14.45m ($15m).

Fassmer’s Berne yard has a long track record in technologically-advanced, special-purpose vessel construction. Its orderbook was augmented at the start of 2022 by the 125m deep-sea research vessel newbuild Meteor IV for the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The contract was secured in partnership with the Meyer Group, which delivered Germany’s 118m ocean-going research ship Sonne in 2014.

MAIN PARTICULARS – Uthorn