The Government of the Australian state of Tasmania has decided to re- enter discussions with Rauma Marine Constructions (RMC) in Finland to build two ropax ferries after a working group had found that building them in locally would not be viable.

“We will now enter negotiations for 30 days with RMC for the new Spirit of Tasmania vessels targeting Tasmanian local content of between $50 million and $100 million across both vessels, and we expect also an additional local spend by TT-Line in the order of $40 million as part of the Tasmanian Government’s preferred way forward,” state premier Peter Gutwein said in a statement 

This is a substantial increase on the current Memorandum of Understanding, which provides for $16 million of Tasmanian content across the two vessels. 

RMC had signed a letter of intent with the Australian counterpart to build the two ships, but the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic led to a study to see if the ships could be built in Australia instead. The group completed its work earlier this month and found that building them locally would not be economic.

RMC said last year that the projected vessels would be delivered to the customer at the end of 2022 and 2023. “The vessels set to operate under the brand Spirit of Tasmania will replace the existing vessels, Spirit of Tasmania I and II (ex. Superfast III and Superfast IV), built in Turku, Finland in 1998,” RMC said in a statement. 

“The new ferries will accommodate 1,800 passengers and will have an approximate gross tonnage of 48,000. The ferries are set to operate in challenging conditions on the Melbourne, Australia – Devonport, Tasmania route,” the Finnish shipbuilder said.