Japan drops TSL

Japan has announced it will abandon plans to put into service the world’s fastest passenger ship, which cost $103 million to build, due to predicted operating deficits.

The Techno Superliner (TSL), which has been under construction at the Tamano works of Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding (MES) for delivery later this year, was intended to ply between Tokyo and Chichijima in the Ogasawara Islands and will now most likely be scrapped. The reason given by Construction and Transport Ministry and the Tokyo metropolitan government is that they could not subsidize the business plan which was likely to lose money.

To save the contract, the ministry and the metropolitan government planned to cover the remaining losses of $8.9 million a year with an additional subsidy, but the Finance Ministry opposed their plan. The plan to introduce the new TSL in November ended because Ogasawara Kaiun and Nippon Yusen, the shipping firms, declared they would not sign the lease contract if the subsidy was not granted.

The TSL, which was developed as part of the New Millennium Projects in 1999, is a catamaran surface effect vessel powered by gas turbine driving water jets that allow it to travel at a top speed of 40 knots.