NEW VESSELS Schiffko offers innovation as standard
AS it launches its latest containership design, Schiffko argues that there are advantages of having a ship design prepared before the contract is signed
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HIP design has traditionally been a core business for shipyards, whose focus on low
initial cost allows them to make an attractive offer. The ship owner’s focus, however, will be on
minimum total costs. These depend both on initial costs and on running costs. Fuel consumption and maintenance costs strongly affect running costs, while being of lesser interest to the shipyard. For the owner it sometimes pays to invest more
in certain equipment, if fuel savings and easy maintenance can be achieved. Design costs are marginal if compared with
the ship’s overall price, but for a single vessel, efforts equalling a man-year or more can easily be needed to take a conceptual design to the point of a signed contract specification. These efforts have to be pre-financed by the shipyard, and ultimately will need to be compensated by the owner. For specialised vessels, such as those used in
the offshore sector, the alternative ‘architect’s’ approach has increasingly been followed: the owner hires a designer then invites shipyards to bid for the vessel according to the design. In this case, the design has to be pre-financed by the owner, but it can be more tailored to his/her interests. Shipyards are still free to use their standards and optimise the detailed engineering to their needs, but performance parameters and key equipment are predetermined. More recently, the same approach has been
seen in the commercial vessel sector, especially where ships have been built to high specifications in emerging shipbuilding countries with no track record. Other stakeholders have also observed the
advantages of having a design prepared before the shipbuilding contract is signed. Some examples are:
• Integral design and material packages supplied by one company: e.g. by Rolls Royce group, including the products of Ulstein, Aquamaster, Bergen Diesel.
• Design and vessel newbuildings offered by South Korean shipyards with strong preference on their in-house design and using equipment manufactured within the same group (other solutions being penalised by high additional costs).
• Classification societies supporting design developments for new markets, e.g. Germanischer Lloyd developed a 12,000 TEU Container vessel jointly with Hyundai Heavy Industries.
• Shipowners developing innovative designs, like Maersk or others, with large in-house design resources.
• Shipowners and design companies jointly developing new designs: Graig Shipping
THE NAVAL ARCHITECT FEBRUARY 2007 Schiffko’s new 'Resolute' class of 7000 TEU capacity containerships.
created the Diamond class bulkers jointly with design company CarlBro and introduced these to the market.
Independent Hamburg-based design house
Schiffko says that commercial shipowners are increasingly calling in designers at the starting point, with the company becoming involved in project management, plan approval, construction supervision and inspections as well. Schiffko’s flexible and operationally economic
CV 1100 PLUS container vessel design, for example, has led to the construction or contracting of more than 130 ships at a wide variety of yards. Now, the company is offering the new ‘Resolute’
Class as the next generation of container vessel in the 7000TEU range. This integrated design includes a number of environmentally-driven aspects as standard, including the separation of all bunker and oil storage tanks from the ship’s double hull, to minimise the risk of oil spillage. To allow operation of the vessel in Sulphur Emission Control Areas, low sulphur heavy fuel oil tanks have been strategically located in the centre of the vessel. Also adopted has been the flow through ballast
water exchange method which, compared to the less flexible sequential method, has a lower impact on cargo weight capacity. A space provision has also been made within the design for the incorporation of ballast water treatment technology, when that becomes available. The design also envisages installation of
electronically controlled engines, featuring lower NOx and SOx emissions and, as an option, using either steam turbine or exhaust gas turbine technology for waste heat recovery. In view of the fact that the 6700TEU variant of the
Resolute design would accommodate up to 1000 refrigerated containers, with a 7300TEU version accommodating up to 1300 slots, a significant part of the reefer plant requirement would draw on the waste heat system, which recovers around 10%-11% of the energy generated by the 60MW engine proposed. For vessels with a lower reefer requirement, part of the energy recovered could be fed back into the propeller shaft. The design also includes an innovative
deckhouse, presented by Schiffko but actually the result of a long-running, publicly funded research project that also involved makers of prefabricated accommodation units and HDW. The resulting proposal is for a strong, modular, light-weight structure, easily combining accommodation and
Schiffko’s innovative compact deckhouse.
service units, built up by self-supporting cabin modules, rigidly interconnected, and provided with supplies through centralised service systems. Here, piping, ventilation, A/C, electric and
communication are easily accessible in an open duct between the cabins, which reduces the work for mounting, cabling, commissioning, and inspection. Areas for accommodation, service, maintenance and storage can be allocated independently. The system gives considerably reduced construction cost and time savings as production is largely independent from the hull erection schedule. The deckhouse itself offers container stacking
space. Critically, such a deckhouse would be adaptable across a range of vessel designs and sizes. It envisages bridge, accommodation and communal areas as separate modules that can be arranged and sized in accordance with the specifications of the ship. The main deck level contains technical spaces in the aft part, storage, galley and mess rooms in the centre part and deck offices and Suez crew accommodation in the wing parts. Sophisticated high standard crew accommodation is located in the upper decks of the SB and PS wings, all of them with daylight, and most of them with superb outside views not obstructed by container stacks. Using the full width of the vessel, the
deckhouse reaches up to five decks only, but the wheelhouse is located far above, supported by two rigid framework pillars that also support at its rear end exhaust pipes and ventilation ducts.
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