Northern Baltic Sea News

Northern Baltic Sea ferry operator Tallink Grupp, which operates vessels under the Silja Line and Tallink brands, has selected the Finnish-developed nauticAi Log type approved electronic record book for its fleet of ships, with the Swedish-flagged cruise ferry Silja Symphony as the first one to go paperless. “We switched to paperless engine logbooks here on Silja Symphony from 1 June and feel that this is a good step towards even more modern and digitalised operations as well as our overall sustainability goal of going paperless.

Estonian shipping company Tallink Grupp said that its vessel Silja Europa has set sail to Turku Repair Yard in Naantali, Finland for scheduled maintenance and planned renewal works that would make the ship more environmentally friendly.The 1993-built vessel will stay in Turku Repair Yard for two weeks, returning to the Tallinn-Helsinki route on February 9, said a press note from the provider of mini-cruise and passenger transport services in the northern Baltic Sea region.During the scheduled docking, the vessel will undergo considerable renovation of several key passenger areas. Also, technical upgrades will be carried out on the vessel.For example…

Sanmar Shipyards of Turkey, held a keel-laying ceremony for the first of two TundRA 3200 ice breaking tugs for Finnish operator, Alfons Håkans Group.According to a press release, Jarkko Toivola (Director/Vice President) and Tero Hänninen (Project Manager), representing Alfons Håkans Group, and Orhan Gürün (Chairman of the Board) and Hasan Çakmak (Technical Director) on behalf of Sanmar Shipyards were present at the occasion.Robert Allan (RAL) was selected as the designer of new ice-breaking tugs for Alfons Hakans, a major tugboat owner and operator in Finland. RAL worked closely with the operator and the shipyard to develop the customized…

Robert Allan Ltd (RAL) has been selected as the designer of new icebreaking tugs for Alfons Hakans, a major tugboat owner and operator in Finland.The collaboration between Alfons Hakans, with extensive practical experience in harbor tug operations and icebreaking, and Robert Allan Ltd., with its long history of icebreaking vessel and compact icebreaker-tug designs, resulted in the development of a unique, high-performance vessel.These new tugs will be specifically designed for year-round service in the Baltic Sea and particularly in the Northern Baltic Sea which is covered with heavy ice during winter.The TundRA series of tug designs…

Alfons Hakans AS, a provider of tugboat services, has signed a contract about two ice class 67-ton bollard pull ASD tugs with Sanmar shipyard in Turkey.Technical specifications with drawings are done in co-operation with Canadian Robert Allan Ltd, said a press release from the towage operator with decades of regional expertise in Northern Baltic Sea region.These new-buildings are the first icebreaking escort tugs made for a private actor to arrive in Finland. The design project combines Alfons Håkans’ and Robert Allan Ltd.’s experience of icebreaking, escorting and assistance operations to match and exceed regions best existing tugs’ performance in all these qualities."This is a challenging task as just compliance with ice class doesn’t provide required strength and performance.

World’s first liquefied natural gas (LNG) icebreaker Polaris refueled for the first time at the Nordic countries’ largest LNG terminal in Tornio in the icy Röyttä Harbour.As of yet, LNG is the world’s most environmentally friendly ship fuel. It does not contain sulphur, and its combustion generates approximately 87% less nitrogen oxides in comparison to regularly used Marine Diesel Oil (MDO). Furthermore, LNG’s particulate matter emissions are nearly non-existent.From the outset, Polaris was designed as an icebreaker that combines efficiency with environmental friendliness.“This is the third winter in the demanding, icy conditions of the northern Baltic Sea for the world’s first LNG-powered icebreaker.

For as long as men have traveled and traded by water-routes, ice has been a nemesis for ships and their hulls. And with good reason since, on average, sea ice covers about 25 million square kilometers (9,652,553 square miles) of the planet—amounting to about two-and-a-half times the area of Canada. To wage ice battle, even in the earliest days of polar exploration, sailors used strengthened ships to ply icy waters. Naturally, these ships were originally wooden and based on existing designs but reinforced…

MMT (Sweden) has been awarded parts of two separate hydrographic survey contracts for the EU financed project 'MONALISA' for the Swedish Maritime Administration (SMA) and the Finnish Transport Agency (FTA). MONALISA is a Motorways of the Sea project which aims at giving a concrete contribution to efficient, safe and environmentally friendly maritime transport. This is done through development, demonstration and dissemination of innovative e-navigational services to the shipping industry, which can lay the groundwork for a future international deployment. Quality assurance of hydrographic data for the major navigational areas in Swedish and Finnish waters in the Baltic Sea contributes to improving safety and the optimization of ship routes.

Achieving the Finnish windpower target by 2020 (6 TWh, approx. 2500 MW installed capacity) requires the implementation of several major offshore wind parks. The recently approved production tariff is not sufficient for implementation of offshore wind parks at the present cost level, and thus costs need to be reduced. Together with their customers, STX Finland, Meriaura and Hafmex have launched a ‘design-to-cost’ project, that seeks to significantly reduce the lifecycle costs of offshore wind parks. Demand for electricity is expected to grow in the coming years, at same time that prices are expected to increase. After Italy, Finland is the second largest net importer of electricity within the EU…

STX Finland and STX Windpower are  starting a joint collaboration on turnkey windpark supply in Northern Europe, focusing on offshore sites in the Northern Baltic Sea region and onshore sites in Finland, Sweden and the Baltic states. A Letter of Intent was recently signed by both companies stating that STX Windpower B.V. supplies direct drive turbines and STX Finland completes the project on an EPCI basis. In addition to turnkey windpark supply, the joint offering also includes complete lifecycle support, including operations, maintenance, spare parts supply, retrofits, refurbishments and decommissioning. The collaboration also looks…