Two 70 m LNG Aluminium catamarans launching with evergreen airbags

Strategic Marine c shipyard launched Two 70m aluminium catamaran vehicle passenger ferries with Evergreen ship launching airbags on 19^th and 22^nd January 2019 respectively.

Designed by BMT Nigel Gee, those two LNG single fuel RoPax CATAMARAN ferries, numbered as H387 and H388, will be shipped to Holland for Rederij Doeksen by submersible barge.

Details of the 70m catamaran passenger ferry

Length : 70 m

Beam : 17 m

Passengers : 592

Vehicles :  66 cars

Speed : 14 knots

Class : LR *100 A1, SSC PASSENGER, CATAMARAN, G2, UMS, LFPF (GF,NG)

Challenges

The launching of two catamaran ferries is the combination of various techniques: SPMTs heavy transportation, marine airbags vessel transportation, airbag heavy lifting and ship launching, cradle construction and fixing,etc.

The yard needs to launch those two catamarans in 5 days. Every steps of operation must be completed on time and some operations are affected by the tidal change.

Catamaran Cradle

Catamaran has thin fin structure, to enable airbags can have enough contact area with catamaran bottom, extra cradles are needed. The cradles design and how to fixing to aluminium catamaran is a big problem.

Catamaran Transportation

Those two units RoPax CATAMARAN ferries were build in the workshop, need to be transported to launching slipway via SPMTs first.  But SPMTs can only put down the catamarans in the middle of slipway, not the final launching position.

So marine airbags will take over the left jobs. They will lift catamarans from 1.3-1.5 m high keel blocks and move them to get near the water, until reach final launching position.

Moving catamarans to launching position, must be completed within low tide time, which last only a couple hours generally. A for H388/387, people need to move vessels 40 meters forward in three hours.

Catamaran launching

When catamarans are moved to final launching position, they will be launched with ship launching airbags in high tide time.

Those wave-piercing catamarans employ a low-buoyancy bow on each hull that is pointed at the water line and rises aft, up to a level. The spanning bridge deck is configured with some of the characteristics of a normal V-hull.

The features of wave-piercing catamarans have higher demand of launching with airbags, the low buoyancy bow and stern need more supporting forces from marine airbags during the launching.

Solutions

Evergreen Maritime has a long time relationship with Strategic Marine, providing ship launching airbags and technical support for the first Floating docking launching and two 7000 tonnes lightweight DSV launching ,named CABALLO MAYA and CABALLO MARANGO.

As for the catamaran passenger ferry launching, Evergreen provided all needed airbags, total 28 pieces ship launching airbags with 2 m diameter and 6 m length.

Evergreen Maritime is the subsidiary of Evergreen Maritime group, a professional engineering company engaging in ship launching, dry docking ,heavy lifting with marine airbags.

Evergreen Maritime takes over the technical service for the catamaran launching, include design, calculation and launching supervising. Working with EMAS and SMV engineering teams, we designed the cradles for aluminium catamarans transportation and launching. By several times calculation, Evergreen Maritime optimizes the launching procedures, ensure 100% safety of the project.

Achievements

On 16^th January 2019 Eversafe engineering team arrived at SMV shipyard, which is located in Vung Tau city of Vietnam.

From 18^th January to 19^th January, Eversafe engineering team helped SMV launched the first 70 M catamaran ,H388, Named Willem de Vlamingh.

Then from 21^st January to 22^nd January, the second wave-piercing catamaran, named as Willem Barentsz was successfully launched into the sea by efforts of all teams involved.

Every two days, launched one vessel, it is very productive. And the said launching, includes moving catamaran out of workshop, move to slipway, put down vessel on blocks by SPMTs, heavy lifting and transport by marine airbags, at last release vessel for launching. All teams involved the project works 14 hours everyday to catch the schedule.

It is very impressive of SMV yard performance and EMAS engineering teams’ professionality. Evergreen Maritime engineering team give thanks to all teams involved in the project, especially to our group company for the great support.