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CONCEPT HYDROFOIL E-FERRY

DESIGNED FOR 100-MILE RANGE

The ferry is designed to have a range of up to 100 nautical miles and a cruising speed of 40 knots.

ALAMEDA, CALIF.-BASED MARINE TECHNOLOGY startup Boundary Layer Technologies has released a concept design for a zero-emission, all-electric ferry said to have twice the speed and range of existing e-ferries.

Called Electra, the ferry is designed to have a range of up to 100 nautical miles and a cruising speed of 40 knots using Boundary Layer Technology’s proprietary hydrofoil technology and podded propulsion system.

Compared to fossil fuel alternatives, Electra’s battery electric propulsion significantly reduces cabin noise by up to 20dB compared to conventional ferries. Its foiling system also offers excellent seakeeping and ride comfort.

“Hydrofoil technology is the key to enabling electrification of passenger ferries,” says Ed Kearney, CEO of Boundary Layer Technologies. “By reducing the drag of the vessel by a factor of two, the powering requirements are also halved, which increases the speed and range of what an electric ferry can do. This opens the door to electrification of the majority of ferry routes across the world.”

The Electra ferry is said to offer OPEX reductions of up to 35% compared to fossil fuel burning fast ferry alternatives while helping operators de-risk the future cost

Pasha to Repower Box Ship to LNG Dual Fuel

A 42-YE A R-OLD PA SH A HAWAII CONTAINERSHIP, the 2,400 TEU Horizon Reliance, is to be converted from steam propulsion and converted to dual fuel—presumably LNG—propulsion. The ship is one of four Jones Act containerships acquired when Pasha acquired the Hawaii trade lane operations of the now defunct Horizon Lines back in 2014.

News of the planned conversion emerged when Tønsberg, Norway-based Høglund, reported it had been awarded a contract to deliver automation and fuel gas supply system (FGSS) for the vessel. and said that in partnership with China’s COSCO Shipyard Group, it will deliver a total integrated solution on the vessel, including the installation of FGSS, power management system (PMS), ship performance monitor and digital solutions for data collection, as well as the full automation of all the new systems on board the ship.

“Rather than recycling this 274- by 30-meter ship built in 1979, owner Sunrise Reliance LLC’s choice to entirely retrofit uncertainties of carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes.

Someone who is impressed with the concept is Patrick Murphy, president of Blue & Gold Fleet, the contract operator of San Francisco’s 15 high-speed ferries.

“We think Electra is an exciting development of ferry technology and shows promise for decarbonizing ferry operations and adding to the customer’s experience,” he says.

Boundary Layer Technologies has already developed the hydrofoil and control systems required for Electra and plans to have the first vessels in operation by first quarter 2024.

and refurbish the ship signals the company’s commitment to environmentally conscious action,” says Høgland. Sunrise Reliance LLC is a Pasha subsidiary.

Høglund says it will design, engineer, manufacture, supply and deliver a fully integrated automation solution to support the vessel’s transition from steam propulsion power to a dual-fuel vessel. This includes a high-pressure FGSS— with a design supply pressure of 320 bar—and Høglund’s signature PMS and ship performance monitor.

BIZ NOTES

Møkster Explores Use of Ammonia in Existing Engines

Can you burn ammonia in existing LNG dual-fuel engines? Stavanger, Norway-based offshore support vessel specialist Simon Møkster Shipping aims to find out.

The family-owned company has entered a collaboration agreement with Wärtsilä Norway AS for a project that involves a feasibility study on utilizing ammonia as main fuel in dual-fuel engined vessels operated by Møkster that today operates mainly on LNG.

Ammonia releases no CO2 when burned. By using a blend of ammonia and LNG, the emission of CO2 from the combustion process will be considerably reduced.

The aim of the project is to demonstrate that conversion of dual fuel powered vessels is feasible and that operation of ammonia-LNG vessels can be done in a safe and efficient way.

Møkster says it is excited to join forces with Wärtsilä for the project, which may continue for several years to come.

Simon Møkster Shipping is a supplier of offshore support vessels with high quality specifications, designed for operations in harsh weather conditions.

Kirby Exits Hawaii, Takes Earnings Hit

Fincantieri Bay to Build Second Polaris LNG Bunkering Barge

TANK BARGE GIANT KIRBY CORPORATION reported results for the quarter ended September 30, 2021, that included a net loss of $264.7 million, or $4.41 per share, compared with earnings of $27.5 million or $0.46 per share for the 2020 third quarter.

David Grzebinski, Kirby’s president and CEO, commented, “Kirby’s third quarter results were impacted by a one-time noncash impairment charge related to our exit from Hawaii and the restructuring of our coastal marine business.”

Kirby’s decision to get out of Hawaii was signaled in a WARN notice filed with the Hawaii Department of Labor and Industrial Relations on October 8 in which the company said it would be closing the Kirby Offshore Marine LLC operations in Hawaii and that employees were receiving 60 days notice of the closing with 72 being laid off.

Grzebinski said “during the quarter, we decided to exit Hawaii and the coastal wire tank barge market, incurring a one-time non-cash impairment charge. This decision focuses our coastal business on attractive markets, eliminates significant future capital outlays, and removes our exposure to marketing coastal wire assets with poor market acceptance.

Through these actions, we expect our coastal business will improve its performance in 2022 and is now positioned for long-term success.”

Kirby says it completed the sale of its Hawaii marine transportation assets including four coastal tank barges and seven coastal tugboats for cash proceeds of $17.2 million. In addition, the company retired 12 coastal wire tank barges and four coastal tugboats, which, it said, “had limited customer acceptance in today’s market.

STURGEON BAY, WIS., based Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding has agreed to partner with PNE Marine Holdings, an affiliate of Polaris New Energy to build a second 5,500 cubic meter LNG bunker barge. This new barge will be a sister vessel to the LNG bunker barge Clean Canaveral, which is set for delivery to Polaris later this month.

Demand for LNG as a marine fuel is growing rapidly, with over 400 new LNGfueled vessels set to enter service over the next several years. Polar New Energy is a unit Northstar Midstream and the new barge adds to Northstar’s growing fleet delivering LNG to cruise ships, container vessels, bulk carriers, car carriers, and tankers that are in service or on order today.

The 5,500-cubic-meter ATB barge will be fitted with four 1,375-cubic-meter IMO Type C tanks.

It will utilize a cargo handling system designed and developed by Wärtsilä. Upon completion, the vessel will be 340 feet in overall length, 66 feet in beam, and 32 feet 10 inches deep. It will be an Oceans Classed ABS barge.

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Amazon Brings in the Boxes on a Bulker

The G2 Ocean vessel Star Lygra arriving in port with a cargo of Amazon boxes.

WITH THE CLARKSONS CONTAINERSHIP PORT CONGESTION Index reaching a new high last month, the trend for shippers to switch goods from container vessels to bulk carriers looks to be picking up pace. Among those taking that route is Amazon. The Port of Houston recently tweeted images of the G2 Ocean vessel Star Lygra arriving in port with a cargo of Amazon boxes.

Though the Star Lygra is officially classed as a general cargo ships, most people would characterize it as an open hatch bulker. Bergen, Norway headquartered G2 Ocean, a joint venture between Gearbulk and Grieg Maritime, is one of the world’s largest operators of open hatch vessels and its Managing Director-Atlantic Scott Krantzcke says that, due to the ongoing global supply chain challenges, G2 Ocean has carried a greater number of containers in 2021.

“We are expecting this trend to continue well into 2022,” he says. “By doing so, we hope to ease the situation for customers and provide them with the reliability they need.”

COCA-COLA GOES FROM BOXES TO BAGS

Meantime, Coca-Cola, too, has been shifting some goods to bulk carriers, but not in containers, in bags.

“When you can’t get containers or space due to the current ocean freight crisis, then we had to think outside the box (or the container),” Alan Smith, procurement director – global logistics at the Coca-Cola Cross Enterprise Procurement Group in Meath, Ireland, said in a recent LinkedIn post, noting that the company was loading three bulk vessels that week with 60,000 tonnes of material to keep its production lines running across the world.

“This is the equivalent of 2,800 TEUs that traditionally would have shipped with the shipping lines,” he wrote, “The first of many we hope over the coming months and a prime example of excellent collaboration between our procurement teams, our supply chain partners and our suppliers.”

Autonomous Tug Completes 1,000 Nautical Mile Journey

THE NELLIE BLY, A DAMEN TUG outfitted with a range of Sea Machines Robotics solutions, last month arrived in Hamburg after completing a 1,000+ nautical mile autonomous “Machine Odyssey” around Denmark. The tug completed its journey in just 129 operational hours over 13 days, while commanded by U.S. Coast Guard-licensed mariners, many of them AMO union members, remotely stationed 3,000 miles away in Boston.

The Nellie Bly employed first-of-its-kind AI-enabled, long-range computer vision and a sensor-to-propeller autonomy system, the Sea Machines SM300. Its technical features allowed for path-planning, active domain perception, dynamic obstacle, and traffic avoidance and replanning, depth sensing, and fusion of vectored nautical chart data. Sea Machines says that 96.9% of the 1,027mile journey was accomplished under fully autonomous control and the SM300 successfully executed 31 collision-avoidance and traffic separation maneuvers.

Using multi-sensor fusion, the system digitally perceived over 12,000 square miles of ocean space more accurately and comprehensively than comparable human operators.

Throughout the voyage, the tug averaged a speed of 7.9 knots. Sea Machines gathered 3.8 TB of essential operational data showcasing how ships can readily connect as IOT systems into the cloud economy. The SM300 also provided the remote commanders in Boston with an active chart of the environment and live augmented overlays showing the progress of the mission, state of the vessel, situational awareness of the domain, real-time vessel-borne audio, and video from many streaming cameras.

“The completion of this voyage marks the catalyst for a new era of at-sea operations,” said Michael Johnson, CEO of Sea Machines. “Over the last two millennia it’s estimated that around one-hundred million vessels have transited these same Danish waters. Though vessels, cargos, nations and destinations have changed, the way these great ships are commanded has remained virtually constant, with humans onboard making navigational decisions, undertaking manual control actuation, and communicating person to person. Only now are we revealing a new method of operation. Remotely commanded autonomous vessels provide the marine industries with the platform necessary to be competitive in the modern world, delivering significant increases in productivity and operational safety, digitized ultra-efficiency and response speed, and will provide a new world of actionable operational data for improved planning and business practices. The Machine Odyssey signals the start of a new humantechnology relationship propelling on-sea operations in the 21st century.”

Sea Machines says that 96.9% of the 1,027-mile journey was accomplished under fully autonomous control.

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Floating Wind Innovator Opens U.S. Office

DUBLIN, IRELAND-BASED FLOATING OFFSHORE WIND system specialist Gazelle Wind Power is opening a U.S. office in Austin, Texas. The company claims to have “reinvented the floating wind platform to be lighter, flexible, and more stable” with a platform design that is a hybrid of semi-submersible and tension leg platform designs. Lighter than conventional platforms, it uses approximately 70% less steel and is one-third the weight of other floating platforms. It has a tilt of less than 1 degree and has 80% less mooring tension load than tension leg platforms.

Gazelle says its platform is more compact and simpler to build, deploy, and maintain than other floating platforms, which translates to dramatically lower levelized cost of energy.

Reaching offshore wind energy production targets will require developing wind farms in waters deeper than 60 meters with substantially larger turbines. At these depths, it’s harder to build, secure, and maintain fixed platforms on the seafloor. Gazelle’s innovative, hybrid attenuated mooring platform is designed and engineered to enable floating offshore wind production in deeper waters farther out at sea. Its unique platform design is a hybrid of the semi-submersible and tension leg platform designs, incorporating all their advantages.

The system has received a statement of feasibility from classification society DNV.

“Gazelle’s innovative mooring system is a completely new concept,” said Claudio Bittencourt Ferreira, business development director at DNV. “Achieving the statement of feasibility as part of the concept assessment defined in DNVGL-SE-0422 is a confirmation that Gazelle has demonstrated technical feasibility of the technology to deliver its targets in line with the requirements of our service specification that was developed to enable innovation in the marine renewables market.”