Deltamarin Ltd has signed contracts with Xiamen Shipbuilding Industry Co., Ltd (XSI), which is located in southeast China, for engineering and construction support services for the Viking Line LNG-fuelled ro-pax vessel newbuilding. The contracts cover basic and detail design as well as comprehensive project management support and supervision services to the shipyard during vessel construction.

Deltamarin has developed the new vessel concept together with Viking Line, and delivered assistance in the tender and contract phases for the owner. Deltamarin’s sales manager Nina Savijoki comments: “We are very happy about the constructive cooperation with Viking Line. From a naval architectural point of view, they presented us with every concept developer’s dream challenge: to come up with a concept that is even more energy efficient in relation to cargo capacity than their Viking Grace, one of the most energy-efficient and sophisticated ferries on the market.”

“We have received good support from Deltamarin during the concept development and the worldwide yard selection phase, and look forward to continuing the work together with them and Xiamen Shipyard during the vessel construction,” says Kari Granberg, NB manager at Viking Line.

Special focus in the concept development was put on hull form development, weight control, energy efficiency (including waste heat recovery) and improvement of the General Arrangement. Deltamarin succeeded in making the new concept 10% more energy efficient than Viking Grace.

Now that the Viking Line ship contract with XSI has been confirmed, Deltamarin will continue with the basic and detail design of all disciplines for the yard. Deltamarin will also support the yard in project management as well as passenger vessel building process requirements and provide supervision services during the production of the newbuilding project.

The value of Deltamarin’s contracts with XSI in total is over €11 million. The engineering and pre-construction project management support will be carried out mainly at Deltamarin’s offices in Finland over an estimated period of 12 months. The supervision and other construction support services will be carried out until planned delivery of the vessel in 2020.

The new ro-pax vessel for Viking Line will have a passenger capacity of 2,800 people, and the length of its cargo lanes will be 1,500 metres. In addition to running on liquefied natural gas (LNG), the vessel will have two 24 m-high rotor sails installed. She will serve the Finland – Sweden route, connecting Turku, Åland Islands, and Stockholm as part of the European Union’s Motorways of the Seas project.

Deltamarin earlier worked together with XSI in a construction project for the world’s highest capacity Pure Car Truck Carrier series for Höegh Autoliners.