Fincantieri’s subsidiary Vard has delivered Le Commandant Charcot, polar exploration vessel to French cruise company PONANT.

The unique and state-of-the-art electric hybrid exploration vessel propelled with LNG has been developed by PONANT, Stirling Design International, Aker Arctic and VARD. The vessel is specially designed to bring passengers to discover the polar world’s extreme unexplored lands such as the geographic North Pole (90 degrees North Latitude), the Weddell Sea, the Ross Sea and Peter I Island. The unit, classified as Polar Class 2, will fulfil the highest standards for environmentally friendly and safe operations. It is the first-ever electric hybrid cruise vessel with ice-breaking technology and dual fuel propulsion, featuring high-capacity batteries and LNG storage on board.

Le Commandant Charcot is 31,570gt, 150m long, and 28m. The vessel accommodates 245 passengers in 123 staterooms, in addition to a crew of 235 persons.

The ship’s hull was built in Romania and completed by Vard’s Soviknes yard in Norway. After initial fitting out at Soviknes, Le Commandant-Charcot was moved in July 2020 to Saint-Nazaire in France to be placed in Joubert dry dock for installation of its ABB Azipod propulsion system. The vessel was then returned to Norway for completion.

Wärtsilä has signed a seven-year long-term Optimised Maintenance Agreement to support the operations of two river pusher tugs operating in Northern Brazil. The vessels are owned by Hidrovias do Brasil, a leader in South American river transportation.

The vessels operate with Wärtsilä 20 engines, often in shallow waters and remote locations. These challenging operating conditions make the planning and execution of maintenance procedures difficult. This agreement, therefore, allows the customer to focus on its core business knowing that the service level is efficient and the long-term costs fully predictable.

Included in the agreement are Wärtsilä’s Data-Driven Dynamic Maintenance Planning and Expert Insight innovations to deliver remote operational and technical support. The service also includes other important benefits, such as an insight to fuel efficiency, maximised uptime with maintenance being carried out on an ‘as-needed’ basis rather than according to a set number of operating hours, spare parts planning and coordination, and personnel training.

“Long-term maintenance contracts guarantee the reliability and availability of the Wärtsilä engines installed in our main pushers. Under this contract we receive technical support from the manufacturer of the engines, parts for preventative maintenance, and remote monitoring of the engines’ performance. Because of the gains it provides when well managed, maintenance is a strategic area for us. Therefore, we identified the need to continue with a long-term contract in partnership with Wärtsilä,” said Ricardo Brandalise, Maintenance Manager, Hidrovias do Brasil

“Optimised Maintenance agreements are part of Wärtsilä’s Lifecycle Solutions offering, and are designed to improve our customers’ business performance and competitiveness. With these agreements, we are able to increase availability and ensure optimal efficiency. The addition of Expert Insight to our lifecycle offering takes predictive maintenance and optimisation to levels never seen before, thus enabling reduced unplanned maintenance and optimised fuel efficiency with a corresponding reduction in emissions. We are pleased to continue strengthening our partnership with Hidrovias do Brasil with this agreement,” said Marcelo Barthaburu, General Manager, Agreement Sales Americas, Wärtsilä Marine Power.

An earlier agreement with Hidrovias, signed in 2017, covers eight river pusher tugs operating in Paraguay.

Japanese operator Mitsui O.S.K. Lines has announced that it reached an agreement with Shin Kurushima Dockyard and Nihon Shipyard to build four 7,000-unit capacity car carriers using LNG as their main fuel.

The announcement follows several other announcements confirming orders by the company for LNG-fuelled car carriers, ferries, bulkers and tugs. In all MOL has plans to launch about 90 LNG-fuelled vessels by 2030, under its strategy calling for “Adoption of Clean Alternative Fuels”. In a statement the company said, “In addition to the LNG-fuelled vessel projects that the MOL Group has been working on, we will promote the use of LNG-fuel for car carriers, starting with this decision”.

The statement also said MOL is accelerating its preparations for the launch of environment-friendly vessels using not only LNG fuel but also biofuels which are reaching the practical application stage, while continuing to research the use of ammonia and other next-generation fuels. It will make further efforts with the aim of becoming the company of choice for various stakeholders, by delivering a new value—zero-emission transport of cars.

Russian specialist designer and builder Alekseev’s Hydrofoil Design Bureau yesterday launched the first of a new design hydrofoil to be operated by Russian inland transport operator Severrechflot which ordered four of the type in late 2019.

The vessel is a Meteor 120R type able to carry 120 passengers and having a range of 600km.

“Meteor 120R is a symbiosis of the best traditions of the design school of Rostislav Alekseev and innovative engineering and technical solutions: a new generation wing scheme that allows the vessel to develop cruising speeds of up to 80 km/h, while maintaining comfort for passengers, modern hull materials, an integrated vessel control system using artificial intelligence, serving the safety of navigation. This is an “intelligent” ship with a modern comfortable cabin with climate control, multimedia systems, a beautiful panoramic view and a café-bar in the aft part, “said Georgy Antsev, Chairman of the Board of Directors, Alekseev’s Hydrofoil Design Bureau.

The construction of the Meteor 120R type marks another step in the resumption of serial production of hydrofoils in Russia. Previously, we could only dream of resuming the serial production of hydrofoils, but today this is a reality: 11 Valdai have already been launched, they run in three regions of Russia, including navigation in six directions is open in the Nizhny Novgorod region. Today we are present at the descent of the lead vessel “Meteor 120R”, and there are already plans for the further development of the direction of hydrofoils, “said the Governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region Gleb Nikitin.

“New vessels make it possible to launch new routes, increase the transport accessibility of settlements in the regions. The design of the vessel was held within the framework of the state program for the development of shipbuilding and equipment for the development of offshore fields until 2030 with the support of the Ministry of Industry and Trade of Russia. Renewal and replenishment of the passenger fleet in the regions with these new, modern vessels became possible thanks to the state program of preferential leasing. When creating the Meteor, all the wishes of passengers and operators of such vessels were taken into account. It turned out to be a modern, safe and comfortable vessel for passengers and crew.” – said the Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation Denis Manturov.

Orange maritime customers will now be able to accelerate their digital transformation with higher-capacity satellite connectivity services provided jointly by SES Networks and Orange after an agreement was reached between the two organisations.

With this innovative agreement, Orange will integrate its own global infrastructure with the global network coverage powered by SES Networks’ Skala Global Platform. Together it will enable Orange maritime customers to cost-effectively scale up their bandwidth. This will ensure they can implement new technologies onboard that take advantage of IoT and AI, as well as edge and cloud applications.

The combination of the Orange secured and digital network infrastructure and SES Networks’ Skala Global Platform — a next-generation technology platform that provides worldwide coverage via multiple geostationary satellites and gateways interconnected by a global terrestrial network — will deliver reliable, high-performance broadband services everywhere. This confirms the Orange ambition to become a key player offering solutions for the maritime sector.

This latest agreement further strengthens the partnership that the Orange Group and SES Networks have established in the last few years.

“At Orange, we continue to believe that satellite is a future-oriented technology and that the many recent innovations in this industry will give it a growing place in the telco area, whether in Africa, in more developed areas such Europe or North America, or in specific industries such as maritime. This is why we are glad to reinforce our partnership with SES, as it will add a new component to our overall mission at Orange, that of building intelligent, open and innovative networks in order to support the digital transformation of our business customers and provide access to digital usage to the largest number of people,” said Jean-Luc Vuillemin, Executive Vice President, Orange International Networks Infrastructures and Services. “With the commercial maritime sector seeking global and high-quality connectivity as it enters the next stage of digitalisation to implement more AI and other automated technologies, expanding our partnership with SES is fitting as we will be opening the door to more exciting innovations for our maritime customers.”

“We have been working closely together with the Orange Group the last couple of years to provide high-performance connectivity services worldwide to their customers in many different industries. As our partner, they were the first major telco player to embrace our upcoming O3b mPOWER and now collaborating together on our Skala Global Platform, SES will deliver new levels of connectivity, creating seamless, reliable global coverage for those in the maritime industry. Our flexible bandwidth solution removes any barriers that might be holding shipowners back from realising the full value when it comes to their digital investments,” said John-Paul Hemingway, CEO of SES Networks.