Viking Grace is a passenger and car ferry being constructed to operate along the Turku – Aland Islands (Finland) – Stockholm (Sweden) route on the Baltic Sea. When launched in 2013, she will be the world’s most environmentally-friendly and most energy efficient passenger ship of her size, with a gross tonnage of 57,000 and a length of 210m (880 cabins, capacity of 2800 passengers). STX Finland, is building the vessel Viking Grace for an estimated cost of €240m.

 

The ship uses liquefied natural gas (LNG) as fuel, thus generating significantly less emission in comparison to ships using oil. To further reduce fuel consumption and its footprint on the environment, optimizing the weight of the ship has been a key priority.

 

ISOVER mineral wool Marine solutions have been extensively used to reach this objective. Approximately 40.000m2 of lightweight ISOVER Glasswool solutions and 90.000m2 of ISOVER ULTIMATE solutions for fire protection structures (A15 to A60), with a total weight of 240t, have been installed, enabling a staggering weight reduction on the insulation of 230t compared to traditional solutions, thus decreasing the insulation weight by 50%.

 

Among others, ULTIMATE solutions U MFA 66 30mm and U MPN 66 70mm have been installed to provide 1h fire protection to steel bulkhead constructions (A60). The unique lightness of ISOVER Marine solutions has been identified as a clear advantage for the ship-owner Viking Line and the shipyard STX Finland to increase the energy efficiency of this passenger ship. We wish its future passengers and crew: safe, swift and `graceful ́ sailings.