Wärtsilä to Power New Tallink Cruise Ferry

Wärtsilä Corporation was awarded a repeat order in February 2006 for main and auxiliary engines for the fourth new cruise ferry for the Estonian ferry company Tallink Grupp AS. The ferry will be built at the Helsinki shipyard of Aker Finnyards ASA in Finland with delivery in summer 2008. The Wärtsilä engines give the newbuilding a compact, low weight machinery plant with excellent fuel consumption. For this new cruise ferry, Wärtsilä will deliver the complete outfit of main and auxiliary engines: namely four 16-cylinder Wärtsilä 32 main engines with a combined power of 24,000 kW, two Wärtsilä twin input/single output reduction gears, and three six-cylinder Wärtsilä Vasa 32 auxiliary engines totalling 7380 kW. Wärtsilä has already delivered the machinery for three previous Tallink cruise ferry newbuildings, the "Romantika" which entered service in 2002, the "Victoria I" of 2004, and the "Galaxy" which is due to go on her maiden voyage in May 2006. Tallink operates in the Baltic, mainly between Tallinn, Estonia, and Helsinki, Finland, across the Gulf of Finland and directly between Tallinn and Stockholm, Sweden.

The newbuilding will be broadly similar to the sister ships. It will be 212 m long and 29 m wide, with accommodation for 2800 passengers together with a large Ro-Ro capacity for vehicles, road trailers, Mafi trailers, cars, coaches, etc. Passenger accommodation will include 927 cabins, several restaurants and bars as well as a 450-seat conference centre. The principal difference in the newbuilding will be a greater service speed of 24.5 knots. Wärtsilä will also deliver the basic design of the engine room together with the workshop documentation for the newbuilding owing to a change in the main engine type. The previous vessels in the class are each equipped with four 16-cylinder Wärtsilä Vasa 32 main engines in Vee-form configuration and three six-cylinder Wärtsilä Vasa 32LN type auxiliary generating sets.

Although the Wärtsilä engines were selected mainly as a repeat of the three previous ships, the change in engine type gives the required increased power to comply with the requested increased cruising speed, in a still compact machinery plant of minimum weight. The Wärtsilä 32 main engines also have a low fuel consumption for their class, even taking into account their directly driven engine-driven pumps.