More than just passenger ships

Finnish shipbuilders have largely concentrated on passenger shipping in recent years. This focus seems set to continue, although their development work does cover other ship categories. Kvaerner Masa-Yards Double Acting Tanker (DAT) design, for example, is one non-passengership design originating from Finland that is set to become reality. Sumitomo Heavy Industries in Japan is building two 106,000 dwt DAT-design vessels. The design features fully rotating Azipod?s to enable the vessels to sail bow first in open water and stern first in ice. ABB Azipod?s sister company ABB Finance has ordered the vessels on the basis of a charter commitment from Finnish energy group, Fortum Oil & Gas. Deliveries are set for June and September next year. Aker Finnyards is also involved in a non-passengership project. It is building a hovercraft for the Finnish Navy. The hovercraft will be armed with missiles and will have the capability to ride over low rocks extending above the surface and over ice. This will give the craft great operational flexibility enabling it to sail outside the confines of established shipping lanes. But passenger shipping, as said earlier, is the dominant force occupying the minds of the Finnish yards? designers. One local design office, Elomatic, has recently produced a design for a 70,000g cruise ferry for an undisclosed customer, according to Peter Albrecht, the company?s manager of shipowner services. He points out this exceeds the size of Silja Europa and the 59,925g P&O North Sea Ferries? Pride of Rotterdam. The company has also started a new unit called Shipowner Services. This will systematically coordinate efforts to serve an owner throughout the lifetime of a ship. New 3D models using Cadmatic software will, for example, allow design alterations to a ship and tracking of a vessel?s maintenance work. This latter example is particularly useful for electrical equipment, which can have a significantly shorter life span than the vessel itself. Unto Hiltula, managing director of LST Engineering warns that replacing equipment where original documentation on how work was done is missing can create big problems. He suggests that all documentation be stored electronically, on CDs or DVDs, to reduce the risk of loss. “Up to the mid-1980s, automation only controlled the main engines and generators, whereas modern ships are filled with it: they even have diesel electric power stations,” notes Hiltula. He adds that there are countless examples of relatively new equipment having to be replaced because no spare parts are available. He points to the specific case of a tanker built in the mid-1980s. Spares for the inert gas system, vital for safety, could no longer be found as the PLC (programmable logic controller) used in it had become obsolete. The biggest problems often arise when a datasheet from a manufacturer goes missing, says Hiltula. This makes it difficult to judge what replacement equipment can be used. “Quite often heavy costs follow from this because it can take a long time to find out how the system looked like originally and how a piece of equipment can be replaced,” he explains. “Sometimes the system has to be redesigned from a scratch if the details are missing.” At the shipyards themselves, Masa-Yards has recently unveiled a panamax cruise liner design called Nova. This has a gross tonnage of about 100,000 compared with about 90,000 for the biggest panamax cruise ships of today. This means it can accommodate more passengers and thus generate greater revenue for its operator. Disney Cruise Line has recently hinted at plans to expand its fleet of two 85,000g ships with a bigger ship. It has indicated this ship won?t exceed 100,000g and that it will serve the company?s Californian theme park. If the company wants the flexibility to deploy between central Florida and California while maximising available revenue it could be tempted by a Nova-type design. Currently Masa-Yards is building four 88,000g Spirit-class cruise ships for Carnival Corporation at its Helsinki shipyard. The next of these, Carnival Pride, is set for early delivery at the end of this year. Three further post panamax cruise liners of the Voyager class are on order for Royal Caribbean Cruises at the Turku shipyard. The last two vessels (at least for now) feature a number of differences on the original design, such as bigger balconies projecting outside the side of the ship. Aker Finnyards? current projects include the 34,000g ropax ferry SeaFrance Rodin. A 40,000g cruise ferry will be delivered to Hansatee, an Estonian company trading as Tallink, next spring. Furthermore, one 8,600g and two 12,000g ferries have been ordered by NorthLink, a Scottish company.