Dutch set up outfitting yard in Germany

Eeva VG, the first of the two 4700dwt VG EcoCoaster general cargo newbuildings for Finland’s Meriaura Group, is already at the new yard at the Deverhafen site in Papenburg. Delivery is at the end of July and the second ship will follow three months later. Papenburg authorities said the Dutch company will be sending nine further sea-going ships to Deverhafen for fitting out over the coming three years.

The new yard company, called Bodewes Papenburg, will employ mainly local German labour. Martijn Beunk, responsible for business development at Royal Bodewes, told The Motorship that the advantage of inland Papenburg – also the home of cruise ship builder Meyer Werft – over the Dutch site in Hoogezand is the absence of beam restrictions, meaning that ships wider than 16m can be fiitted out there.

Royal Bodewes has specialised in multi-purpose and specialised newbuildings of up to 14,000dwt and already co-operates with yards in the Uklraine, Poland and China.

The Polish hulls and the engines on the new VG EcoCoasters are optimised to 10,5 knots. Power for Ice Class 1A is from a diesel-electric driven booster unit. The newbuilds will be propelled by Type ABC 8DZC DF engines for biofuel and MGO and have Cummins 560kW gensets. The aim, said the owners, is to almost halve fuel consumption compared to similar conventional dry cargo vessels and also to cut emissions drastically.