Viking chooses Wärtsilä engines

Wärtsilä has been awarded a contract to deliver the power plant for the new ferry contracted by the Mariehamn, Finland, based shipping company Viking Line Abp at the Helsinki shipyard of Aker Yards. The ferry will be delivered in January 2008.

For this ferry, Wärtsilä will deliver four eight-cylinder Wärtsilä 46F main engines, each of 10,000 kW output at 600 rpm, and three 8-cylinder in-line Wärtsilä Auxpac 20 generating sets, each of 1,350 kWe output.

The 2,500-passenger ferry will have dimensions of 185 m length overall, 170 m length between perpendiculars, 27.70 m breadth and 6.55 m design draught. It will be built to Ice Class 1A Super for year-round navigation in the Baltic, and will have a service speed of 25 knots. The ferry is intended to provide fast comfortable trips with modern range of dining and shopping facilities for passengers, and to meet the increased need for transport capacity, especially for passenger vehicles.

The Wärtsilä 46F engine features a high power concentration, enabling 40,000 kW to be delivered by four engines with a minimum number of cylinders while giving substantial benefits in minimum engine height and breadth. The low weight of these engines will enable the ferries to have an increased payload capacity compared with alternative engines and will be equipped with catalysts to minimise NOx emissions in the exhaust gases.

The main criterion for selection of the Wärtsilä 46F for the main engines, however, is that the engines’ fuel consumption can be optimized for the complex operating profile with frequent variations in engine power during the crossings between the ports of Helsinki and Tallinn.