Gasfuelled ships conference gets a royal visit

The ceremony took place on Friday 14 September, just outside the Radisson Blu hotel in Bergen, by coincidence where the Gasfuelled ships conference was being held at the same time.

At the conference, Mr Kjell Sandaker, project manager, Eidesvik AS, gave the keynote address at the GFS Conference and also gave a talk on experience with gas and fuel cells in ship machinery.

He said to The Motorship: “The location was chosen as it was just at this location we had naming ceremony almost 10 years ago for our first gas powered vessel, the Viking Energy which was the world’s first gas powered cargo ship.”

The Viking Princess is delivery number 347 for the Kleven Shipyard and it is the sister ship to Viking Prince, which was delivered in March this year. It was officially named by its sponsor, the Crown Princess of Norway, HRH Crown Princess Mette-Merit.

Measuring in at 89.6m, the vessel has breadth of 21m and a draft of 7.6m, weighing in at 5014 gross tonnes, the Viking Princess is immediately entering into a long term contract with Statoil.

Kleven is a leading supplier of advanced gas powered vessels in Norway with seven vessels delivered and two more on order.