Finnish ship designer Deltamarin has signed a contract with China Merchants Jinling shipyard (Weihai) for the complete design of Stena Line’s three roll-on/roll-off passenger (RoPax) ferries.
One of the vessels, which will have a capacity of 1,100 persons and approximately 2,600 lane meters, will be chartered by a Canadian federal Crown corporation, Marine Atlantic, from Stena RoRo .
It will be equipped with liquified natural gas (LNG) dual-fuel engines and a battery hybrid solution to minimise emissions.
The ship is expected to enter service in eastern Canada between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia in 2024.
Furthermore, the other two RoPax ferries will have a capacity of 1,400 persons. Cargo capacities have been tailored for the planned services and differ in terms of total lane meters and lane meters intended for cars, the company noted.
Both ships will be equipped for LNG operations, meaning that they can run on LNG, biogas or other new fuels such as ammonia.
In addition, the units will have a large battery hybrid solution of 10 MWh for propulsion and manoeuvring in port and an 8 MW electric shore connection for charging the batteries.
The vessels will be delivered in 2024 and 2025 and will operate on two of Brittany Ferries’ primary routes between Portsmouth in the UK and Ouistreham (Caen) and St Malo in France.
The design work will start immediately and be carried out mainly at Deltamarin’s offices in Finland.
The work is scheduled to be completed during 2022.
Deltamarin has earlier provided China Merchants Jinling shipyard with consultancy and contract design services on the projects.
In June 2020, Deltamarin signed a contract with the shipyard for the approval and detail design of Finnlines’ RoPax hybrid vessel project.