Höegh expands in more ways than one
Newbuilding is underway on Vietnam’s first pure car and truck carriers, while owner Höegh also has an ambitious lengthening programme for existing ships.
S
teel cutting began on 26 February at Vietnam’s Nam Trieu Shipbuilding Industry on the first of four ‘Horizon’
class pure car and truck carriers, marking the beginning of a new chapter in Vietnamese shipbuilding. Te Höegh Autoliner ships were ordered
through yard parent Vinashin in a US$536 million deal in 2006, which also had options for four more PCTCs attached. Te ships will be capable of carrying 6900 cars and sail at a speed of 20.5knots, and will be built under the supervision of Norway’s DNV and a specially-assembled seven to eight-strong site and project management team from the shipowner itself. Each of the vessels will be 199.9m long and
32.26m high, with the first vessel scheduled for completion by December 2009 and the last of the initial four due in the first half of 2011. Te Nam Trieu yard has signed a contract covering detailed and production design for the vessels with Finnish company DeltaMarin (seeTe Naval Architect, January 2008, pp29-31). Te design includes an aerodynamically
shaped bow section to reduce wind resistance as well as an optimised hull design verified by comprehensive series of model tests to
provide reduced energy consumption. The ‘hinged design’ has been chosen
for the hull structure in the upper decks to enable maximum freedom for location of ramp ways and minimum traffic obstructions as well as increased utilisation of deck area. Frame spacing and web spacing has been adjusted to take the corresponding loads. Te double bottom will consist of a horizontal divided compartment, where there will be water ballast tanks in the bottom and fuel oil tanks on the top. For the moment, the build plan envisages
construction at Nam Trieu’s existing slipway, although the yard’s plans to build a new drydock may enter the equation should the option for four more ships be taken up. A spokesman for Höegh Autoliner
said that, with the exception of steel itself, the shipowner was undertaking all procurement on behalf of Vinashin, also characterising the construction as ‘involving much more pre-outfitting than Vinashin is used to’. Te ships will include low-speed MAN
B&W 7S60 ME-C mark 8 diesel engines and a controllable pitch propeller.
Cargo access equipment will be to
TTS designs, with Vinashin undertaking production, but all essential equipment coming from TTS. Höegh is also boosting its capacity through
efforts elsewhere in Vietnam, following last September’s deal to elongate 10 existing car carriers at Hyundai Mipo Dockyards’ satellite yard Hyundai Vinashin Shipyard, and an agreement with Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering that it would lengthen two more ships currently under construction. Te ‘jumboising’ projects will see each of
the 200m long 10 ships cut in two amidships, with sections floated apart before a new 28m- long, 12-deck section inserted. Te whole operation will take less than two months per ship to complete. With a steep increase in cargo volumes in
its Asian trades, the carrier needs larger vessels fast. Lengthening the vessels will have only a minor effect on vessel performance, with speeds slowed from 20.5knots to 18.5knots, but the impact on capacity will be significant. Te car deck area will be increased from 54,000m2
to 67,000m2 end of
2009.NA , boosting capacity
from 6100 cars to 7600 units. All the vessels will be elongated before the
BRIGHT NEW
THE VISION
The Naval Architect April 2008 39
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