An agreement was recently reached between Princess Cruises, the engine builder Wärtsilä and the shipyard Fincantieri that Newbuilding
6100 at the said shipyard will be equipped with Wärtsilä Common Rail engines. The engine configuration is four 12-cylinder engines and
two 8-cylinder engines, all of the Wärtsilä 46 type in diesel-electric configuration, giving the ship the total installed power of 67.2 MW.
The Hull 6100 is a modified version of earlier ships at the same shipyard, i.e. the "Carribean Princess" class. The passenger capacity is
3100.
The
first newbuilding with common rail engines, the "Coral Princess", has now been in operation for one and a half year, and the engines
have passed 10,000 h of operation. The sister ship, "Island Princess", has more than 5,000 h of operation. The "Diamond Princess" built
at Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard is right now entering service, and the sister ship later this spring. Cunard's "Queen Mary 2" is also
equipped with Wärtsilä 46 Common Rail engines. In addition to the Wärtsilä 46, also the Wärtsilä 38 and the Wärtsilä 32 are available
with common rail injection.
Mr Charles Arkinstall, Executive Vice President, Princess Cruises, says: "Our first decision to go for common rail engines was based on
the company policy to go for environmentally friendly solutions whenever possible. We are pleased with the way the engine builder has
supported the products, we are happy we have been able to support the engine industry in the introduction of this important technology
in terms of environmental friendliness."
Since the first common rail engines were delivered the technology has been developed for still lower smoke values on the Filter Smoke
Number scale, FSN. The
new engines will have a FSN of