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Success on a plate
24th Jun 2026
Solar panels on the ferry's roof would supply 11% of the vessel's auxiliary electricity demand (image: Universitas Indonesia)
Designing a passenger ferry for the River Niger means confronting a particular set of constraints: variable water depth as shallow as 0.89m, shifting channels, water hyacinth overgrowth, subsurface wrecks and piracy on the Lokoja–Onitsha route.
The winning entry in the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association’s (WFSA) 13th Annual International Student Design Competition For Safe Affordable Ferries addressed all of them, and did so with a hull form and construction method chosen specifically to be buildable by a Nigerian shipyard.
First prize went to Nagapasa, a 10-member team from Universitas Indonesia led by Felicia Rachel Taruli Siregar, who also