Worldwise Marine News

Design teams in IJmuiden, Montrose, Escrick, Bideford and Shanghai will now all operate under the IJmuiden-based Offshore Ship Designers (OSD) name and will work more closely together. The office in Bideford is new and will focus on cargo ships, patrol vessels, dredgers and mega yachts. Michiel Wijsmuller, managing director of OSD, said, "We are not just rebranding, we have integrated a loose group into a strong company. WorldWise Marine and IMT are now an integrated design company with solid engineering capacity but above all, a strong independent presence in all the key markets.

WorldWise Marine, a partner in the Offshore Ship Designers group, has launched a new design for a near-zero emission hydrogen powered tug. Michiel Wijsmuller, managing director of Offshore Ship Designers, said, "This new harbor tug will be able to remain on standby, and mobilize/demobilize with zero emissions, and will save up to 98 percent of SOx, NOx and particulate matter and 30 percent of CO2 emissions in total compared to a conventional harbour tug over the whole employment cycle.

For the development of the Hydrogen Hybrid Harbor Tug, WorldWise Marine worked with Dutch tug operators Iskes from IJmuiden and Smit from Rotterdam, which are expected to build the first of the new tugs for use in European harbours. The 50 ton bollard pull tug is fitted with fuel cells and hydrogen tanks, where hydrogen is stored under a pressure of 430 bar. The fuel cells, in combination with batteries, are able to provide sufficient power to operate the tug during standby and mobilization/demobilization periods. Only when substantial bollard pull is required to actually perform a berthing operation are the diesel generator sets used. Eighty-five percent of the time, the tug is powered by the fuel cells and achieves zero emission.

The Offshore Ship Designers group has opened a design office in . Initially staffed with six naval architects it will provide design resources to OSD’s European partners and also provide Asian shipyards with innovative tug and offshore support vessel designs. OSD has recently undergone a change in partners with the acquisition by ’s Ulstein Group of one of the founding partners, Dutch heavy offshore vessel designer . OSD now consists of the combined resources of WorldWise Marine, the specialist tug design and consultancy, and IMT Marine Consultants, which has a strong portfolio of offshore support vessels of all types. Offshore Ship Designers Group (OSD) is a global one-stop resource delivering naval architecture and marine engineering skills to the shipping and offshore energy industries.

WorldWise Marine, part of the Offshore Ship Designers group, has launched a propulsion and power optimization program, OPROSYS, which evaluates the best propulsion and power generation packages for emergency towing vessels.

Three offshore, ship and tug design and technical consulting companies have joined forces to provide a new one-stop resource for oil companies, offshore operators, tug owners, ports and shipyards. Offshore Ship Designers, based in Ijmuiden, the Netherlands, bring together the skills, experience, innovation and workforce of naval architects and engineers of Dutch companies Sea of Solutions BV, WorldWise Marine BV and UK-based IMT Marine Consultants. The formation of Offshore Ship Designers follows the acquisition of the majority shareholding in IMT by Sea of Solutions and WorldWise Marine, which was completed at the end of 2006. Current projects underway at OSD include the design of a pipelay/derrick vessel with a 3…