Tag Archives: Viking Grace

Meyer Turku at the Forefront of Cruise Newbuilds

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Meyer Turku has always been at the forefront of new technologies, Tim Meyer, CEO, said to Cruise Industry News, noting that the yard built the first LNG-fueled passenger vessel, the Viking Grace and that its sister yard in Papenburg delivered the first LNG-fueled cruise ship.

“It is important to understand that every time we build a prototype, we set very ambitious targets for GHG emissions and fuel consumption so that the new ship becomes more efficient. That becomes part of our building contract with most customers and, of course, by reducing the fuel consumption, we also lower our customers’ operating costs.

“Over the years, we have been introducing new technologies in our newbuilds, such as, for example, podded propulsion; air lubrication to reduce the hull’s resistance in the water; advanced wastewater treatment, ballast water treatment, and more, which eventually have become building standards for the cruise industry.

“Now, we are focusing on HVAC, which is a large energy consumer,” Meyer continued. “It is not necessary to cool down all the public rooms all the time, when there are no people present, for example, or staterooms when people leave.

“There is also the ventilation and exhaust from the galleys that used to run around the clock. We are now optimizing this, so it is only running when there is cooking going on.”

In addition, Meyer Turku is looking to develop a carbon-neutral cruise ship concept by 2025, working with suppliers, universities and research organizations, as well as the state of Finland.

“This is a very important effort and will be key to our success going forward,” Meyer said. “On one hand you have the ship itself, on the other hand, you have the shipyard, and then we have our network and supply chain that can be optimized.

“A cruise ship is like a small city; you have everything from water production to wastewater treatment and so on. The goal is to have all these systems working together as efficiently as possible, and with AI (artificial intelligence) we will be able to do just that.

“Another pillar is our people, so we are also focused on creating new competencies within the yard, looking at how we are working and developing new ideas for methods and procedures.”

As a shipbuilder, Meyer said the company can literally build anything. However, the key is that it must make sense.

“When you have a ship such as the Viking Grace running between Stockholm and Turku, then it makes sense to operate on LNG, as long as you have a fixed route. But if you have a cruise ship sailing all over the world that may not work if LNG cannot be bunkered. So, you have to adapt the product.

“The big question is what fuels will be available and where they will be available,” Meyer continued.

“Another factor that plays in is the energy density of marine fuels. Diesel oil has the most energy per litre; methanol has only half as much, LNG a little less than methanol; liquefied ammonia, liquid organic hydrogen carriers and liquefied hydrogen even less.”

Thus, future fuels could impact the design and general arrangement of future ships, tank space and bunkering frequency.

“What do zero emissions mean,” Meyer asked rhetorically. “Does it mean no exhaust only or does it also mean no sound and no vibrations? What is important for us is to look at different aspects, not only the cruise ships themselves but also the supply chain. Germany, for example, is studying how to make steel production more sustainable. As a shipyard, we cannot do all of this but work as partners with our suppliers.

“We have to look at the whole picture, and if you compare to what people do on land, let’s say they drive their car, heat their homes, prepare food, go to the theatre and so forth. If you add all that up on a per capita basis, I think cruise ships will come out quite well.”

Contrary to land-based hotels and resorts, there is no waste of energy on a cruise ship, according to Meyer, who said that is a challenge the shipbuilder has been tackling for years and continues to look for new solutions.

Excerpt from Cruise Industry News Quarterly Magazine: Fall 2022 

Will AIDA Cruises LNG barge’s hurdles hinder cruise LNG take-up?

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Viking Grace Receives 1000th LNG Top-Up

by Rebecca Moore for http://www.passengership.info/ 

The regulatory challenges to launch LNG barge-based electricity supplies to cruise ships – initially to AIDA Cruises’ new ships ‒ at Port of Hamburg have been called a “total disaster”. But on the other side of the coin Viking Lines has proudly announced it has achieved 1,000 bunkerings of its ferry Viking Grace via LNG refuelling vessel Seagas.

The passenger ship industry is keen to implement the use of LNG as fuel or for coldironing, but could the struggles that Becker Marine Systems’ LNG-powered Hummel bunker barge has faced be a barrier to the greater take-up of LNG by this sector, in particular cruise ships?

German shipowner VDR marine director Wolfgang Hintzsche told the CWC LNG fuels summit in Amsterdam a few months ago that Hummel‘s regulatory struggles have proved to be “a total disaster, from the point of view of legislation for LNG bunkering”. He warned: “LNG-fuelled ships simply will not come to Hamburg if we cannot sort out our bunkering problem.”

The project has been dogged by in-port restrictions, the barge’s operating permit requiring it to have an expensive harbour tug on standby, engines running, during loading and for Hummel to return to a night-time berth outside Hafencity after every loading, which requires tug assistance.

And Bomin Linde has long-standing plans to launch a small-scale LNG terminal at Hamburg that could include ship-based LNG bunker supply services. It, too, says it has taken “much longer than expected” to secure approvals for its plans.

But passenger ship operators should take heart from Viking Line’s announcement last week that its trailblazing LNG dual-fuelled Viking Grace has reached a milestone after achieving 1,000 LNG bunkerings in partnership with Swedish company AGA Gas AB since it was launched in January 2013.

Seagas, which was specially built for ship-to-ship refuelling, supplies Viking Grace ‒ the first large passenger vessel to run on LNG ‒ with about 60 tonnes of LNG while the vessel is docked in the morning at Stadsgården in central Stockholm.

Viking Line highlights the smoothness of the bunkering procedure, saying that it met its needs for bunkering to occur as quickly as possible, with no interruptions, with assured deliveries and without affecting cargo handling on the quay.

Indeed, Jan Hanses, president and chief executive of Viking Line said “both the technical solution developed by AGA and the vessel’s operation have outperformed expectations”.

And Jonas Åkermark, who is in charge of the LNG marine market at AGA Gas AB, said: “There is still heavy interest in the Seagas, our ship-to-ship bunkering solution and LNG as marine fuel both in Sweden and internationally. We have a well-functioning infrastructure solution in place in Stockholm and the possibility of bunkering more vessels.”

Obviously the two are very different projects and Hummel and Seagas meet different needs, but they both underline the importance of smooth processes and infrastructure if LNG is to be successfully taken up on a wider scale by ferries and cruise ships, either as fuel or for coldironing. Hopefully the regulatory challenges thatHummel is facing will be ironed out, and passenger ship operators can take heart from the success of Viking Grace and its bunkering vessel Seagas.