Shippax News

Interferry CEO Mike Corrigan explains the driving forces behind the global trade association’s imperative to keep its foot on the gas.Interferry and its members scaled some demanding peaks in 2022 but, to state the obvious, our work is never done. Facing an equally busy schedule of challenges and opportunities in the year ahead, we need to keep climbing – a truism that has been memorably expressed as ‘the top of one mountain is always the bottom of another’.Our 46th annual conference in Seattle last October was definitely one of the peaks…

What started as a small naval architectural office 10 years ago has grown into an established and well-respected company. Using various projects and a growing number of in-house disciplines to demonstrate how the Dutch ship design firm C-Job Naval Architects has developed, Managing Director Basjan Faber looks back at some of the most significant moments of the previous decade. “In terms of vessels, there have been numerous milestones,” Faber said. “The St. Pierre – a Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger – was probably the first, for which we provided the concept, basic and detailed Design. More recently, C-Job’s momentum has continued with additional vessels, each of which further cementing the company’s respected position in the maritime sector.

At this week’s 12th Annual Ferry Shipping Conference sailing on board Romantika between Stockholm & Riga, Danish Naval Architects, Knud  E. Hansen A/S, were awarded the 2013 ShipPax Award. The award was presented in recognition of the efficient and innovative design of internal cargo arrangement of the Saudi-owned deep-sea Ro-Ro vessel, Bahri Abha. “For a RoRo cargo vessel, the most important design criteria after fuel consumption, is efficient layout as it reduces the time in port,” says Knud E. Hansen A/S Senior Naval Architect Christian Damsgaard.

On October 28, 2010, Turku Shipyard delivered the Allure of the Seas to Royal Caribbean International. The Allure of the Seas and its sistership Oasis of the Seas are the culmination of more than 40 years of product development cooperation between the cruise line, the shipyard and the maritime cluster. The 225,000-ton Oasis class vessels are 361m in length. The Allure of the Seas can accommodate 6,360 passengers at maximum. In comparison, the Song of Norway delivered to the same customer in 1970 was 168m long with a gross tonnage of 18…

The Natchan Rera, the first of Incat’s 112 metre Wave Piercing Catamarans, has been recognized at Europe’s annual ferry industry event, the Shippax Ferry Shipping Onboard Conference, attended by some 300 ferry shipping executives. Japan’s Higashi Nihon Ferry won the coveted ShipPax Hispeed Concept Award, recognizing the implementation of an integrated ferry system with state-of-the art port terminals as well as the largest diesel powered high speed ferry with separate truck and car decks.

European cruise sale penetration figures compiled by ShipPax Information show that there is a huge untapped market for cruising in Europe. Although, not surprisingly, the UK has the largest penetration of cruise sales, all other European countries, apart from Luxembourg, are way behind. ShipPax Information’s Managing Director, Klas Brogren said: “I am a firm believer in that all European nations one way or another could almost match the UK cruise penetration, which in itself will continue to climb. If so, at an average penetration of 1.4%, European countries would develop another 3.3 million passengers. In other words, the global cruise market would suddenly jump another 25.6 per cent.

Figures published in the latest issue of Cruise & Ferry INFO, published by Swedish shipping media house and consultancy, ShipPax Information, reveal that South European shipyards have taken a lead in the ”market shares” of ferry newbuildings. Ferries worth $1.511 billion are now on order in the Mediterranean countries. At the same time, Northern Europe only produce new ferries worth $ 448 million whereas the Far East produces for $ 545 million, and then mostly for domestic account. But in the longer perspective, this is a trend change.

In the cruise industry, it is widely acknowledged that four main shipyards are competing for the majority of all new cruise ship orders. In its latest publication, GUIDE 01, ShipPax Information of Sweden has compiled figures to illustrate the situation in a market report. According to the outcome, the dominance tends to be strengthened if anything. The four shipyards are Kvaerner Masa-Yards, Meyer Werft, Chantiers de l'Atlantique and Fincantieri. Between them, they delivered 22,630 lower berths on new cruise ships last year. Other yards contributed with 1,968. The "Big Four" had a market share of 92percent of the capacity delivered. In the early 80s and earlier, all cruise ship deliveries came from different yards, albeit the total capacity at that time was not impressive.

Within the ferry industry, 50 secondhand vessels were sold in 2000, representing a total value of $317 million. The information, provided in a market report by ShipPax Information in its latest publication GUIDE 01, reveals that most of the activity took place within the South East Asian market, which bought more than half the numbers, or 26 of the ferries. Fourteen of them came from Japan, 6 from Europe and another 6 were bought within the region. Ferry operators in the Mediterranean sold 16 ferries, whereas Northern Europe only exported 9. Whereas in terms of numbers, the sale & purchase market was quite hectic, most of the ferries sold were small in size and representing low value. Two of the major deals of the year failed to materialise and both involved Greek ferries.

In its annual compilation over world-wide ferry transportation, Swedish-based ShipPax Information registered 854,668,842 passengers within 2002, as well as 149,489,122 cars, 815,322 buses and 22,768,383 trailers. This volume was transported on 4,342,013 trips. It virtually means that every eighth second a ferry is leaving or entering a port, and each hour, 97,500 passengers are boarding a ferry. Still, the numbers can not be complete as long as volumes are not reported from every corner of the world. Therefore, the total transportation work of the ferry industry can only be estimated at way above 1 billion passengers. As such, however, passenger shipping probably would more than equal all airline passenger figures. In addition, passenger vessels also carry a substantial number of vehicles.