gCaptain.com

We don’t generally post press releases on the blog here, but we have been so fascinated by some of Wärtsilä’s previous work that we thought this is worth a post.

These are just a few excerpts of the September 23 press release from Wärtsilä:

Wärtsilä has received major orders for its recently established Wärtsilä Ship Design unit. The orders were received from customers in China, India and Germany. The Ship Design unit was set up following the acquisitions of the ship design companies Vik-Sandvik and Schiffko. The most recent acquisition, the Singaporean based Conan Wu & Associates will also be part of the Ship Design unit.

The orders call for Wärtsilä to design a Deepwater Engineering Survey Vessel, a Multi-Purpose Support Vessel, a Diving Support Vessel, and an Emergency Towing Vessel. Each of these contracts comes as a result of successful bids to design sophisticated tonnage.

Now let’s hear about the vessel’s.

The Deepwater Engineering Survey Vessel design is for China Oilfield Services Ltd, and represents a 4300-dwt vessel capable of drilling operating at deep water for geotechnical surveys and geophysical surveys. To date, most of China’s oil exploration has been in relatively shallow waters, but there is now a need to probe deeper. [Continue Reading →]

Gizmodo points us towards the Russian navy’s Zubr Class hovercraft.  Now this is not a new design.  There have been three in service with the Russian Navy since 1988, with 2 more in the Ukraine navy and even more with the Greek navy.

The vessels are designed for military transport with the capacity to carry nearly 130 tons of cargo including multiple tanks, equipment and troops with the unique ability to deploy them directly onto land.  The Zubr can cruise at max speed of 60 knots for 300 miles.

Naval-technology.com tells us about its propulsion systems:

Three upright ring shrouds, housing the air propellers and standing upright at the back of the ship, give the Zubr its distinctive appearance. The four bladed propellers which are provide the ship with a top speed of 60 knots. High-temperature gas turbine engines provide the power to drive the air-cushion blowers and the air propellers. The craft has four blowers model NO-10, fitted with axial operating wheels of 2.5m diameter, to generate the air cushion. The air thrust for movement is powered by three four-bladed, reversible, variable-pitch air propellers, 5.5m in diameter. The air propellers are mounted inside ring shrouds. The Zubr is equipped with two electric power plants. Each power plant has two gas turbine generators, each rated at 100kW. Control of the ship and systems is carried out from a main control station, a central control room and through various remote control panels.

Now let’s take a look at this thing in action.

Note:  The Bora is larger, but not considered a true hovercraft since its side structure reaches the water.

This week’s vessel is the BEM Monge, a Measure and Test Ship of the French Navy.  The ship is equipped with extensive tracking technologies as well as trajectory processing and radio-electrical analysis, and specializes in taking measurements, processing data, and conducting naval and air surveillance.

In addition to its military functions, the BEM Monge participates in civilian missions for surveillance, space observation, and trajectography. The French space agency CNES has also used the BEM Monge to gather and process the launching parameters for the Ariane 5 space rocket.

(source: tanslate.google.com and consulfrance-boston.org)