Van Der Giessen News

The first of Damen’s new Shoalbuster 3512 class was recently handed over to Dutch marine services specialist Van Wijngaarden Marine Services B.V. in the port of Boven-Hardinxveld, the Netherlands. At the ceremony the Lady Sponsor Elske de Bruijn-de Vries officially named the vessel and made a speech praising the technical capabilities of the vessel. Elske de Bruijn-de Vries is the wife of C.A. (Niels) de Bruijn, a member of the executive board of Van Oord, and is well-known for her role in the TV show ‘Het mooiste meisje van de klas’.

U.K. based Solar Solve Marine received an order to supply 12 SOLASOLV class approved roller screens to the Ben-My-Chree Ro-Pax ferry. The vessel is owned and operated by Isle of Man Steam Packet Company and operates from Douglas to Heysham. Built by van der Giessen de Nord shipyard in the Netherlands at the cost of £24 million, the ship entered into service in 1998 and can carry 636 passengers and up to 200 vehicles. SOLASOLV anti-glare screens are installed at the windows of all types of ships, rigs and cranes worldwide.

Brittany Ferries’ new 24,641gt RoPax ferry Armorique will shortly enter service for the Western Channel operator featuring a vehicle access outfit from MacGregor. MacGregor has unrivalled experience in developing marine cargo handling and offshore load-handling solutions, and is part of Cargotec Corporation, the world's leading provider of cargo handling solutions used in local transportation, terminals, ports, distribution centers, and ships. Armorique has been designed specifically to run between Plymouth in the UK and the Breton port of Roscoff in France.

Harland and Wolff Technical Services Limited, the design engineering consultancy of Harland and Wolff Group PLC, has won additional major contracts from the NASSCO. The Company has been contracted to provide both Detail Modelling and Production Information within the Cargo Zone areas for a series of newbuild Alaska-class tankers to be built for BP. Commencing immediately, the contracts will run until May 2002. Don Wright, Managing Director of Harland and Wolff Technical Services Ltd said, “We are delighted to have secured these latest contracts from NASSCO and to have the opportunity to further develop our relationship with them. Harland…

Nordic prowess in ferry technology, coupled with Irish business verve, is set to take the sector to a new highpoint as regards the concentration of wheeled freight capacity in a RoRo passenger vessel. Built in the cruise ferry mold, Irish Ferries' 50,000-gt Ulysses embodies 4,100 lane-meters of garaging for trucks on four decks. The vessel is an eloquent testament to the operator's robust traffic development, and its perception of new opportunities arising from unprecedented growth in the Irish economy, foreign trade and tourism. Although P&O North Sea Ferries' 60,600-gt Pride of Rotterdam, nearing completion at Fincantieri's Marghera yard…

Harland and Wolff Technical Services Limited, the stand alone design and engineering consultancy of Harland and Wolff Group PLC, has secured a number of international contracts. Following extensive sales and marketing activity to introduce the company's capability to the market, contracts have been obtained from the NASSCO shipyard in San Diego and Van Der Giessen De Noord of the Netherlands. Led by Managing Director James MacGregor, the majority of the 60 staff are broadly equally distributed among four key disciplines, embracing project management, basic design, steel production engineering and outfit production engineering. "The resources available within Technical Services have significant design experience of challenging and innovative vessels embracing the merchant…

Hamurg-based STN Atlas Marine Electronics has been awarded a contract for supply and installation of integrated monitoring and control and automatic power management systems aboard the new SNCM Ferrterranee RoPax ferry being built by the van der Giessen-de Noord yard in the Netherlands. The 175m-long 37,000 gt vessel, which will have a capacity for 550 passengers as well as their vehicles, is due for completion towards the end of this year. The systems include a proprietary type-approved Geamar 120 ISL monitoring and control assembly for centralized ship management and control using a series of operator workstations which collectively provide up to 2,500 measuring points in addition to automated alarm functions.