River cruise innovation

The first of six innovative river cruise vessels is currently under construction at Neptun Stahlbau GmbH in Rostock-Warnemuende, a subsidiary of Meyer Werft Papenburg, and scheduled for delivery end of May 2005. The shipowner is Premicon AG, Munich, founded in 1998 and focused on operation of river cruise vessels and related services. The company placed one fixed order and five options. Premicon?s consultant is the former

technical director of Deggendorfer Werft which in the past built several famous river cruise vessels such as Mozart and Delphin Queen under his direction.

The vessel is unique so far in that it has two hulls but it is nevertheless one vessel. The design task was to realise a vessel that makes use of the maximum length for passenger vessels on the river Rhine, offering equally maximum comfort and safety. Thus the allowed 135 metres are used for one hull with a length of about 25 metres, equipped with the propulsion plant, the generating sets and other technical equipment, and another hull of about 110 metres for passenger accommodation.

As a pushed barge train is not allowed for passenger vessels, both hulls are linked positively together in such a manner that no bending and torsional moments can be transferred. As the heavy propulsion plant is arranged in the short hull, no counterbalance is needed at the bow of the vessel. The patent for this arrangement is still pending, and no further details of the linkage between both hulls have been released so far.

This patent leads to a simple design of the 110 metres long hull, which must not transfer large longitudinal forces. It is built like a pontoon with standardised prefabricated containers put on the main deck as cabins.

The charterer has the choice between 86 cabins of 15.5m2 each or 96 cabins of 13.0m2. All these cabins have full glazing and French balconies. The sun deck above the cabins is supported by light steel work frames. Below the main deck there are two single low-price cabins, crew accommodation and tanks.

Another benefit of the ship design is the minimal noise and vibration transfer from the power plant to the passenger cabins. A lot of weight, therefore, could be saved because of reduced requirements for insulation measures.

The new safety regulations concerning passenger vessels, coming in force at the beginning of 2005, are of course incorporated in this design. Below the main deck there is a transverse-bulkhead to ensure buoyancy.

For the main propulsion plant Schottel rudder propellers have been chosen to achieve the best possible control. Installed are two type STP 440 units each powered by a 16-cylinder engines of the MTU 2000 series with an output of 800 kW at a speed of 1800rpm. For onboard power supply there are three generating sets with 300 kW each, driven by high-speed six-cylinder MAN Nurtzfahrzeuge engines of the D2876 series, with an output of 345 kW at a speed of 1500rpm.

Because of special regulations on the upper reaches of the river Rhine, a W 60 Jastram azimuth jet type bow thruster had to be installed. To minimise noise emission of this jet, a system patented to Jastram is installed which reduces cavitation noise by blowing compressed air into the jet. It is powered by a diesel engine via a Centa electrically operated clutch and a universal joint shaft. The diesel engine is of the same series and size as that of the genset drives, delivering in this case 300 kW at a speed of 1500rpm. All diesel engines are rubber mounted. n