Nils Holgersson Resumes Scheduled Service
The Nils Holgersson, the TT-Line ferry which had been out of service owing to damage to one of its two pod drives, left the Lloyd shipyard in Bremerhaven on September 6, bound for Travenmunde to resume scheduled service. As Siemens and Schottel keep a replacement propulsion module in stock for this project, the time lost by the Nils Holgersson could be kept to a minimum by simply exchanging the module in question. In the case of the Nils Holgersson, the exchange work was completed in only five working days. Small cause, great effect: an installation error in the cabling of the monitoring system let ultimately to the failure of a drive. That was the result of the examination of the defective SSP10 at the plant of Schottel-Antriebstechnik in Wismar.
Podded Propulsion Goes Beyond the Cruise Realm
Compelling design and operational arguments in favor of podded electric drives can be expected to transcend any negative impressions formed from the recent clutch of problems and complications experienced with such systems in certain cruise ship and ferry applications. Experience has shown that technical innovation in the maritime field has invariably been accompanied by early setbacks in some shape or form. In an industry where conservatism is the order of the day, and understandably so where assets are subjected to the rigors of the elements as well as the vicissitudes of the markets, those operators willing to be the standard bearers with new technology provide a beacon for the wider maritime community.
