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LNG ferry conversion completed at Gibdock

Shipreapair & Maintenance: 2nd Quarter 2019

Gibraltar’s Gibdock shipyard has successfully completed a major conversion project enabling the Baleària ferry Napoles to operate using LNG as fuel. The three-month programme of work is considered by the yard to be one of the most complex and demanding it has ever undertaken.

Additive manufacturing gives a new dimension to turbocharger repairs

Shiprepair & Maintenance: 2nd Quarter 2019

ABB Turbocharging is committed to funding an intensive R&D and investment programme through which new technology and digital services can be continuously developed. Rolf Bosma, general manager of global service sales at ABB Turbocharging, says: “We are currently exploring various technologies in line with what our customers require.

Test benches bridge the gap for Norwegian innovation

The Naval Architect: May 2019

Norway is famed for its clustering approach, with knowledge-sharing between large firms and smaller ones, even amongst rivals, ultimately contributing to the maritime industry’s most advanced innovation economy.

But Willie Wågen, interim leader at Sustainable Energy Norwegian Catapult Centre (Norsk Katapult), believes that even with this supportive architecture in place, there are shortcomings that need to be improved. “The way technology is developed there is quite good funding available at the concept phase and quite good arrangements for the market end of the journey,” he explains. “But there is a gap between the concept and proving that concept.

“For example, when a company has developed a new solution, and needs to fit it into part of a system to see if it works, it is very hard for them to get this new technology installed onboard a ship. It has been left to the Siemens and Wärtsiläs of this world to do that.”

The catapult centre, however, endeavours to change this by cultivating test-benches for new concepts to be proven in an inexpensive fashion. Since its establishment in June 2018, the catapult initiative has set up five different centres throughout Norway, from Stord to Ålesund. Each centre has a dedicated focus: robotics, digital (Digicat), ocean innovation (with a concentration on fish farming), sustainable energy, and future materials (including 3D printing).

“We make it so that you no longer need to buy the system. You can bring your component and rent a space in a testing centre,” explains Wågen.

The centre where manufacturer Yaskawa (formerly The Switch) performs its own tests, using a variety of motors and mock-ups of offshore equipment, is one such facility companies can rent out. “Inside this building you have what is effectively a ship on land,” Wågen says. “You have switchboards, systems and so on, and you can simulate a real ship operating. In addition to this, we will make a new test centre for synthetic fuels and connect it to this ‘ship on land’. Anybody who has a fuel cell or an engine can come and test it here.”

At sea, the catapult centre has testing facilities on an offshore wind turbine, a subsea installation and various active vessels, including: Solstad OSVs, Noled ferries, Knutsen OAS tankers and GANN passenger ships.  Other facilities include an electricity microgrid on a small Norwegian island, where tests are made using a variety of new sustainable energy sources.

Catapult is also used as a vehicle to test prototypes in difficult weather, such as choppy waters or cold climates. Wågen compares the initiative to an Airbnb for new sustainable energy inventions, whereby testing and competence centres can connect with new companies. The otherwise clichéd comparison is more accurate in this case than most.

“We market and sell the testing centres – they will tell me what kind of equipment and facilities they have, and when it will be available,” says Wågen. “But in a way it’s better than Airbnb because the centres get support to redecorate the house – that is, winning government funding to help equip them.”

Connecting these companies with the testing facilities is more cost-efficient for young companies than the former model – employed, for example, by various manufacturers of ballast water management systems in recent times – whereby a whole system would have to be purchased and installed in an in-house facility, simply to test a single component prototype. “[Now], you can just bring your component and rent a space in a testing centre,” Wågen says.

One such outfit is electrical engineering consultancy Unitech Power Systems. “We have been delivering subsea distribution systems for many years now, but we want to divert into renewables,” says Karoline Sjøen Andersen, a junior scientist at Unitech. “We want to use our experience in umbilicals to make power cables, a key parameter in the electrification of the ocean.”

Unitech is now reliant on catapult centres for testing its new umbilicals, with the ultimate goal of producing a floating factory which will be able to spin cables on site, as required, from their constituent components. “So you have bundles of different subsea cables for different subsea facilities – electricity, fibre, whatever you need,” says Andersen. “We want to have the whole supply chain in one place.”

Taking Norwegian innovation in a new direction?

The Naval Architect: May 2019

When the Nor-Shipping exhibition opens on 4 June this year, shipowners, shipping organisations and environmental groups will very likely be digesting decisions made at MEPC 74, which finishes two weeks prior, and likely commenting publicly on them. At the same time, many of the exhibitors at the event will be showcasing systems, products and services that are intended to meet the requirements of current and future regulations despite sometimes finding that goalposts have been moved

LNG positioned as 'greenest' marine fuel

The Naval Architect: May 2019

The maritime industry’s feelings towards LNG have swayed between hot and cold since the start of the greening trend. While momentum for the gas grown, so has the questioning of its long-term viability and the fight to determine whether it stands as the best investment option on the road to 2050.

APPROVED redraws requirements for class verification

The Naval Architect: May 2019

Traditionally, CAD packages were deployed in the design and evaluation phases as a means from which design documentation could be produced. But as CAD has come to exist within a larger digital environment, with a flow of information between various systems, its tools are increasingly used as the method for recording product definition.

Analysis in the ice

Ship & Boat International: eNews April 2019

A forthcoming, Russian-built floating science lab is intended to operate in the Arctic for periods of up to two years.

Marine sector 'not prepared' for hackers

Ship & Boat International: eNews April 2019

The marine sector is too complacent when it comes to shielding itself from critical cyber-attacks, Israel-based security solutions provider Naval Dome warned this month.

The green, clean gas of home

Ship & Boat International: eNews April 2019

The air is expected to get significantly cleaner in Osaka Bay, Japan, following the entry into service of the LNG-fuelled tug Ishin.

Time to rethink design of inland vessels?

The Naval Architect: April 2019

The third quarter of 2018 may have been the turning point in design of European inland vessels, or at least signified the start of a thorough reconsideration of the present inland self-propelled cargo vessel design.

The sun sets on Blue INNOship

The Naval Architect: April 2019

When it was launched, the stated objective of Blue INNOship was to develop a green innovation model for the Danish maritime industry that would foster employment and economic growth. Such noble aims are nothing unusual, but what has really been achieved?

Pilot project shows significance and scalability of biofuels

The Naval Architect: April 2019

With the IMO’s 2020 sulphur regulations on the horizon, shipowners face a growing list of options to ensure their vessels remain ‘seaworthy’. Yet the most popular solutions – LNG, scrubbers, low-sulphur fuel oil (LSFO) – all have significant drawbacks. There is an uncertainty about the availability of LSFO, major ports are banning open loop scrubbers, while retrofitting a vessel for LNG is costly and the bunkering infrastructure still limited.

ISU underscores its importance to environmental protection

The Naval Architect: April 2019

Over the past few years the International Salvage Union (ISU) has sought to reposition itself in a changing maritime environment. The Lloyd’s Open Form salvage contract (LOF) – the standard contract between the shipowner and salvor in the event of an incident requiring intervention – has been in decline as modern communications allow shipowners and marine insurers alike to assimilate more information faster. This means the emergency response can be tailored accordingly and avoid costly salvor fees for services, for example for towage, which may not have been required. Increasingly the preference is for bespoke, fixed price services, greatly diminishing the salvors earnings from any operation.

Force Technology goes deeper into shallow water simulation

The Naval Architect: April 2019

Force Technology has been complementing its towing tank and wind tunnel facilities with mathematical modelling services for 40 years. By the 1990s the synergy of these capabilities – taking measurements of both external forces and internal forces – made it possible to offer simulation services for training and analysis purposes. However, performing calculations on hullform in a real-time simulation has long been hampered by the computational power required to perform this accurately.

Research role for Bob and Betty

Ship & Boat International: eNews April 2019

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography has taken delivery of a coastal research vessel, purpose-built for operations offshore Southern California.