Products & services

Seaspan completes work on Silver Explorer

Details: Written by Teijo Niemelä Teijo Niemelä; Category: Products & services Products & services; Published: 25 October 2018 25 October 2018

Seaspan’s Vancouver Drydock has completed work on the Silver Explorer for Silversea Expeditions. This vessel has an ice strengthened hull and is designed to safely bring guests to some of the world’s most remote locations where she often needs to push through treacherous ice floes.

The Silver Explorer begins her next cruise having received significant investment to further enhance the experience of passengers aboard this ultra-luxury vessel. One of the key considerations for the vessel’s owners was ensuring that the chosen shipyard, Seaspan, had an excellent reputation and understood the care and consideration needed to work on this unique vessel.

The Silver Explorer arrived in mid-September and remained under the care of Seaspan, which worked collaboratively with local suppliers and other partners selected by Silversea Expeditions to oversee the refit work. This project was truly a team effort involving 125 contractors working together to complete a variety of upgrades, including the manufacturing and installation of a stabilizer – or ducktail – on the stern of the Silver Explorer.

In addition to assembling a stabilizer, work taking place on the vessel included tank top repairs and changes to some of the tanks functionality, propeller repair and polishing, blast and painting work of the underwater hull. Work on the vessel was completed October 11th, on time and on budget. The Silver Explorer returned to the ocean that same day.

According to Paul Hebson, Vice President and General Manager of Vancouver Drydock, “Our company is proud to have worked on the Silver Explorer. The enhancements to this unique vessel are the latest example of the world-class work taking place at Vancouver Drydock. Exciting projects like this enable Seaspan to create and sustain highly-skilled, middle-class jobs here in our community of North Vancouver. We look forward to welcoming the next exciting project to Vancouver Drydock and building on the unique work that was accomplished.”

“The exploration cruise vessel market is one that Seaspan Shipyards is well placed to support. With our shipyards convienently based in Vancouver and Victoria located minutes away from the Cruise Terminals where these vessels start and end their Arctic Cruises we occupy a strategic postion that is supporting Canada’s role in the broader maritime economy," said Ad Bertens, Business Development Director, Seaspan Shipyards.

Wärtsilä LNG solutions featured on Ponant’s environmentally advanced cruise ship

Details: Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen; Category: Products & services Products & services; Published: 15 October 2018 15 October 2018

The Finnish technology group Wärtsilä’s 31DF dual-fuel engine, which emphasises outstanding efficiency, extremely economical fuel consumption, and minimal emissions, has been selected to power a new and highly advanced, pioneering cruise vessel, the company said in a statement.

The polar ice-class luxury cruise vessel is being built for the France-based operator Ponant at Vard Søviknes, a part of VARD shipbuilding group in Norway. The order with Wärtsilä was in the second quarter of 2018.

Because the 150-metre long ship will operate in environmentally sensitive Arctic and Antarctic waters, it will operate primarily on LNG. Wärtsilä’s advanced technologies and experience in LNG solutions were cited as key reasons for the selection of the 31DF engines and other Wärtsilä solutions.

In addition to four 14-cylinder and two 10-cylinder Wärtsilä 31DF engines, Wärtsilä will also supply the fuel gas supply system, chosen because of the company’s outstanding experience and references in gas containment and gas fuel systems. Also included in the scope is Wärtsilä’s Nacos Platinum advanced navigation equipment, which can later be integrated with an Eniram proactive energy management system delivering predictive insights and mobile alerts. Eniram is a Wärtsilä company.

The company’s Smart Marine Ecosystem vision is to use high levels of connectivity and digitalisation in enabling the efficient use of resources, the highest levels of safety, and the least possible impact on the environment.

“We have ordered the building of a clean ship featuring technologies that go beyond current industry-standard environmental regulations. This is why we have chosen a propulsion format with Wärtsilä’s highly efficient 31DF engine running on LNG,” says Charles Gravatte, Ponant General Secretary.

“Wärtsilä’s cutting-edge technologies are making a huge contribution to creating cleaner, more efficient, and more environmentally sustainable shipping. This valuable contract is a clear example of this. We are delighted to be supporting Ponant in enabling this cruise ship to meet the highest standards of sustainability,” says Glenn Mattas, Regional Sales Director, South Europe & Africa, Wärtsilä Marine Solutions.

The Wärtsilä equipment is scheduled to be delivered in 2020, one year before delivery of Ponant’s polar ice-class luxury cruise vessel. This will be the twelfth ship in Ponant’s fleet of cruise vessels. The previous eleven ships are all powered by Wärtsilä engines.

Adonis launches Adonis Personnel Portal tailored for smart phones, tablets

Details: Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen; Category: Products & services Products & services; Published: 03 October 2018 03 October 2018

Adonis AS (Adonis), leading providers of global maritime HR solutions, recently announced a new release of Adonis Personnel Portal, enabling crew to manage important tasks through their smart phones and tablets.

The new version gives employees greater flexibility in viewing and maintaining their personal information, and in uploading certificates as well as travel expense reports from their mobile devices. It also simplifies document management by integrating the device’s camera to easily capture and record images of receipts.

HR organizations are far more efficient and less error prone when employees are provided with intuitive self-service tools to manage their personal information. The diverse, distributed and fluid nature of maritime workforces makes HR administration a greater challenge than those faced by more traditional, land-based organizations.

The mobile-enabled version of Adonis Personnel Portal is a true self-service solution, combining ease-of-use and broad administrative functionality. The Portal includes modules for electronic capture of work and rest hours, as well as the ability to transfer automatically calculated overtime hours to the Payroll module through a chain of approval.

“Our ultimate goal is to help our customers to increase efficiencies, reduce redundancies, and eliminate errors in the Human Resource information flow,” says Erick Meijer, Product Director of Adonis. “The new mobile self-service portal allows our customers to give their employees, travelling workers and seafarers immediate access to their most vital information, with the ability to update and upload key data from anywhere, at any time. The convenience frees up HR and crew to focus more time and attention on their onboard roles and responsibilities.”

Wärtsilä and Royal Caribbean extend their partnership by five years to 2028

Details: Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen; Category: Products & services Products & services; Published: 04 October 2018 04 October 2018

The Finnish technology group Wärtsilä and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (RCCL) have agreed to extending a turbo charger service agreement by five years, to the year 2028.

The original agreement, signed in 2013, spanned 10 years. Under the agreement, Wärtsilä is optimising maintenance efficiency through improved turbo charger maintenance, providing OEM spare parts, workshop services and preferred technical assistance for 46 RCCL’s ships.

RCCL is the second largest cruise company in the world. The company’s key objective is to provide cruise customers with the best holiday experience, therefore the reliability of the equipment installed on board RCCL’s vessels is of the utmost importance. The availability of Wärtsilä’s technical support at all times, everywhere in the world, helps ensure optimal operations for RCCL’s vessels.

The partnership is to complement the RCCL Global Marine in-house expertise with continuous improvement via various technical innovations and direct access to Wärtsilä’s technical expertise with continuous focus on safety and life cycle cost.

This new agreement between RCCL and Wärtsilä, signed in June 2018, covers a total of 196 engines installed in 46 cruise ships, the majority of which sail in the Caribbean and Europe. The largest portion of RCL fleet of vessels is equipped with Wärtsilä’s condition monitoring technology, which transmits real-time information about engine condition to a Wärtsilä Expertise Centre for analysis. This allows for predictive maintenance planning and optimisation of operations.

“When it comes to maintenance planning and operations, the marine and cruise industry is moving more and more toward long-term partnerships. This is a natural direction, as it enables a holistic approach to vessel maintenance. A partner that understands the installation and optimises their condition throughout their lifecycle can help Royal Caribbean to enhance their business. Close cooperation is essential in such partnerships,” says Sean Carey, Service Unit Director North America, Wärtsilä Services.

Valmet launches Dashboards as part of Valmet DNA Automation System 2018 collection

Details: Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen; Category: Products & services Products & services; Published: 14 September 2018 14 September 2018

Valmet launches Valmet DNA Automation System collection 2018 introducing Valmet DNA Dashboard concept that takes the visualization of process data to the next level. Valmet DNA collection 2018 introduces also improvements to the IO (Input/Output) products and OPC UA (Unified Architecture) communication capabilities. Valmet DNA Automation System is utilized in pulp, paper, energy and other process industries around the world.

Valmet DNA Dashboards make reading and understanding process data easier

Valmet DNA Dashboards are web applications providing pre-analyzed, essential production process information presented in a visual way that is easy to interpret. They use the real-time and history data already available through customer's Valmet DNA Automation System, thus complementing Valmet's Industrial Internet products and services. The new DNA dashboards make it possible to immediately see what is happening at a mill or plant and react to changing situations fast.

By connecting easily to existing system data, Valmet DNA Dashboard can provide key performance indicators and meaningful information to different user roles at a mill or plant, from operators to the CEO. The use of the DNA Dashboards is not limited to a control room - Valmet DNA Dashboards can be used stationary or mobile from any location.

"Valmet DNA Dashboards are designed by applying modern user experience principles. User role and needs determine the content and presentation of data that is derived from Valmet DNA Automation System," says Jukka Ylijoki, Vice President, R&D, Automation Business Line, Valmet.

Valmet DNA Dashboards are available for alarm management for all industries. For paper, board atissue industries, Valmet introduces quality and production monitoring dashboard. For the energy industry, Valmet provides dashboard for the monitoring of energy production and availability as well as emission and production efficiency. For pulp industry, Valmet introduces dashboard for pulp production, departmental and bale quality monitoring.