Dutch Coaster Builder Lands Swedish Order

Two ships in the increasingly-favoured 5,000dwt category have been ordered from north Netherlands-based Royal Bodewes, using the latter’s Eco Trader 5050 design.

Construction has been assigned to one of the Dutch contractor’s partner yards, where work on the first vessel has already started with a view to handover during the second quarter of 2024. The second-of-class is expected to be delivered in the final quarter of next year.

While Royal Bodewes’ headquarters yard is located at Hoogezand, on the Winschoterdiep waterway near Groningen, the company encompasses a larger production network in the north Netherlands plus the affiliated Papenburg yard just across the border in Germany.

The Ahlmark ships will be 87m in length overall and will be to Swedish/Finnish 1A ice class standard, in keeping with the Karlstad-based company’s mainstream activity in the year-round transport of forestry goods from Sweden, predominantly to the UK. Ahlmark’s fleet is reckoned to account for 30% of Swedish timber shipments to the British market, one of the North Sea coast import interfaces being the group’s dedicated terminal at Hull.

The technical specification is such as to meet the criteria for the Bureau Veritas Cleanship notation. The arrangement features protectively-located fuel tanks, so as to minimise the risk of pollution in the event of the hull being breached through collision or grounding.

The design is categorised as Tier III-compliant, using a propulsive power installation based on ABC medium-speed machinery of the DZC series. The chosen eight-cylinder model is rated at 1,780kW, and will effect drive through a Renk reduction gearbox to a nozzled Berg controllable pitch propeller, for a speed of 12 knots. Close quarter manoeuvring will be assisted by a 300kW bow thruster.

The Eco Trader 5050 type provides a cargo capacity equivalent to some 220,000ft³ in a single hold of 60m x 12.4m, equipped with movable grain bulkheads, and accessed through a hatchway closed by pontoon covers handled by a deck-mounted gantry in the Dutch style.

The Eco Trader family in its various configurations accounts for 16 deliveries by Royal Bodewes to date, and the 5050 version nominated by Ahlmark has previously been employed for the 2020-built Annika Braren. Significantly, the Swedish newbuilds will be managed by the German company Rord Braren Bereederungs, which owns the 5,035dwt Annika Braren.

Deployed in the shipment of pulp cargoes from Sodra’s Swedish mills, the 87m Annika Braren is powered by an MaK M25C diesel, which had proved a popular choice with European short-sea operators until the Caterpillar Group decided to terminate all MaK engine production. A year after completion by Royal Bodewes, the ship was retrofitted in Germany with an Eco-Flettner wind rotor.

Rord Braren’s latest newbuild project to its own account entails a 5,200dwt cargo ship due for completion as the Ute Braren in 2024 by the Jiangsu Dajin yard on the Yangtze at Yangzhou, near Nanjing. The vessel will be the 13^th in a series of 14 booked by a group of German operators, and based on a single-hold, mini-bulker design of approximately 90m developed by Groot Ship Design of the Netherlands.

Besides the Royal Bodewes deal, Ahlmark stated that a further two newbuilds under construction in China are scheduled to join its fleet this year and in 2024.