Gondan passenger ship order

The GRP vessel will have an overall length of 14.75m and a beam of 4.8m and is scheduled for delivery in August 2015. It will be built at the Vegadeo shipyard, where Gondan said it has developed a new shipbuilding line for GRP vessels.

It will have two lines of shafts with fixed pitch propellers, two rudders and a bow thruster to improve manoeuvrability plus two electric motors of 48V and 7.5kW for comfortable and low noise navigation.

Alvaro García, GRP division manager, Gondan Shipyard, told The Motorship that the company’s business strategy for next six months is to open new markets to get new orders.

“Our workshop will be plenty of activity during these next months with the building of this boat and other two patrol boats for Spanish Guadia Civil, but our task is to think on the future and to explore new possibilities to increase our orders book,” he said.

“We hope this one to be the first of several possible contracts for similar touristic areas. Really this innovative model includes a new external aesthetic and hydrodynamic design, incorporating ultimate design batteries packages for supplying power to the electric motors. This is the way to get a very quiet and non-vibrations navigation.”

The new facility at Vegadeo was specifically designed and built for this type of vessel. It has a warehouse of 2,000m², of which 1,400m² is fully thermally insulated and heated with temperature and humidity control systems. It is also equipped with a welding zone which is fireproof and isolated, an area for resin projection and a vacuum pump for lamination by infusion.

Other vessels being constructed by Gondan, include a new 74.5m research vessel for Marine Research (IMR) called Dr Fridtjof Nansen. The vessel is of a ST-369 design currently under construction and is due for completion in 2016.