Damen Shipyards Group will be present at the fourth annual US Offshore Wind 2019 Conference and Exhibition on 10-11 June 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts. Damen’s attendance reflects the company’s belief in the enormous potential of offshore wind in North America.

Even though great strides have been taken in detecting, containing and extinguishing fires, the best time to fight a fire is before it starts. The desire to work towards a zero-fire engine room led cruise operator RCL, technology group Wärtsilä, and classification society DNV GL to initiate a joint industry project to improve engine room fire prevention.

The world’s largest plug-in hybrid vessel, Color Hybrid, has been appointed ‘Ship of the Year 2019’. Ulstein Group CEO Gunvor Ulstein received the Award from HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway at the Nor-Shipping exhibition on June 4, 2019.

Following last year’s acquisition of Norwegian lifeboat builder Norsafe by VIKING Life-Saving Equipment, the two companies are joining forces at Nor-Shipping to showcase their complete safety solution.

Ulstein has developed a range of X-BOW® vessels for the RoPax market. The portfolio is based on their ‘compact concept’ of shorter, wider and slower design solutions, leading to high capacity vessels and less expensive newbuilds. The ‘compact concept’ increases the competitiveness of such vessel designs by higher revenue making at lower financial and operational costs.

The X-BOW® is one of Ulstein’s contributions to cleaner and more sustainable shipping operations. Introducing the X-BOW on RoPax vessels is a natural design development.  

Subsidiary of world's largest shipyard becomes first Certified Application Provider to use new Dedicated Bandwidth Service to enable its digital total care solution

Inmarsat has signed a business cooperation agreement that allows Hyundai Global Service (HGS) to offer ship owners and managers a digital total care solution route to maritime digitalization. HGS was established in 2016 by parent group Hyundai Heavy Industries as a digital transformation solutions provider to optimize ship operation and performance.

The Maine North Atlantic Institute at USM (MNAI), has established a working group to broaden the business community’s understanding of market opportunities and available trade resources. The group includes the New England Ocean Cluster (NEOC), the Maine Port Authority (MPA) and faculty members of the University.

Damen is building two LNG-Hybrid RoRo Ferries for Seaspan at Damen Shipyards Mangalia. These two innovative 149-metre vessels will join Seaspan’s fleet with 1,034 lane metres and have 209m3 LNG storage onboard as well as 2 megawatt hours of battery capacity. They will go into service for Seaspan Ferries as part of the company’s fleet replacement programme. The vessels will be classed by Bureau Veritas and will go into operation in 2021 with construction starting in 2019.

Global safety products manufacturer and service provider VIKING Life-Saving Equipment has won a contract to supply CNOOC Petroleum Europe Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of CNOOC Limited, with personal protective equipment (PPE) and servicing for approximately 16,000 passengers annually flying to and from the company’s platforms in the North Sea.

DEME Offshore’s newest heavy-lift jack-up Apollo has recently completed a one-month conversion project at Damen Shiprepair Dunkerque (DSDu). This complex contract involved the installation of a moon pool on the main deck. The technical demands combined with the limited time available required highly precise planning together with working around the clock in order to complete on time.

Classification society DNV GL has signed a contract for the first Cyber Secure class notation with Stena Drilling. The contract covers the application of the “Basic+” notation to the drillship Stena IceMAX and includes the vessel’s dynamic positioning, drilling, and blowout prevention systems. It will be integrated with Stena Drilling’s own safety management systems.

Dutch offshore service provider Ampelmann has secured a contract with DeepOcean to support the hook-up and commissioning of the Valhall Flank West (VFW) project, operated by Aker BP. An E-type system will support the Normand Jarstein vessel enabling the safe and efficient transfer of key personnel to the normally unmanned installation. The campaign is due to start in June.

A new range of davits designed to increase safety and reduce corrosion of critical parts has been introduced to the market by safety solutions specialist Survitec.

Engineered with its European-based partner, a company with more than 20 years’ experience in manufacturing davits, the high-end product was presented to the maritime industry for the first time today at Nor-Shipping. The Survitec range includes different davit types suitable for liferafts, rescue boats and fast rescue craft.

SevenCs and TELKO have announced a cooperation agreement relating to the use of the Nautilus SDK Kernel in the development of TELKO’s new TECDIS units and cooperation regarding the distribution of electronic navigational data between the two companies.

Kongsberg Maritime has unveiled a new series of tunnel thrusters designed to meet demand from the merchant marine sector for a system that is less complex to install, easier to maintain, and more cost-effective to operate than existing thrusters of comparable size.

The technology group Wärtsilä has taken a notable step towards realizing the full commercial potential of autonomous vessels. Following the latest and most advanced testing of its SmartDock auto-docking system, which included giving industry representatives and customers first-hand experience as passengers onboard the test vessel, the company has secured the first order for the system. This makes SmartDock the world’s first commercially available auto-docking solution.