Top 10 Ships of 2018: #2 AIDAnova

"Green Cruising” with AIDA Cruises: Biggest AIDA Cruise Ship operates environmentally

337 meters long, 42 meters wide, 8.8 meters draft, 183,900 GT, four main engines transferring in total 62 MW on two PODs: These are the most important particulars of AIDAnova, the latest Meyer Werft-built cruise ship for AIDA Cruises.

During the laying of the keel Carnival Corp. announced that it was going to build a total of seven new cruise ships which can “in port and at sea” operate with natural gas/methane.

The seven new builds will be built at yards of the Meyer Group in Papenburg, Germany, as well as at its Turku, Finland plant for the brands of the Carnival Cruise Line, AIDA, Costa Crociere and P&O Cruises delivered betwee 2018 and 2022.
With this, Meyer Werft has the largest order backlog for natural gas driven cruise vessels.

AIDAnova marks the launch of the Helios-Class series. According to AIDA the vessel is the largest ever builtin Germany with a capacity for more than 6,000 passengers in around 2,600 cabins in 20 different cabin categories spread on 20 decks.

AIDA Cruises will be the worldwide first cruising company to operate their new Helios-Class ships “up to 100% with natural gas.”
Prerequisite are dual-fuel engines which can be operated with natural gas /methane.

Zeppelin Power Systems provided for the AIDAnova a complete solution with Caterpillar/MaK DF engines. It consists of:

-- four 16 cyl MaK DF engines of type M46DF, in vee-configuration, each 15,440 kW at 514 rpm. In total 61.760 kW.
-- two emergency gensets of type CAT 3516 C-HD, each 2.095 kW at 1,800 rpm
-- the complete LNG processing plant.

Each engine fulfills the IMO III exhaust limit values in gas mode.

The MaK M46DF engines are operating in gas mode according to the Otto principle, which means that the engines need a pilot ignition system to ignite the gas/air mixture in the combustion chamber. This ignition system is a Common Rail system which injects a small amount of MDO fuel.
Three LNG tanks feature in total 3.550 cu. m. LNG and ensure a secure fuel supply for the engines. The three tanks are an in-house development and self-build from Neptun-Werft. The tanks are located in an 120 x 42 meter, four deck-high hull-module. Two of the tanks feature each a length of 35 meters with a diameter of around eight meters and have a content of each 1,500 cu. m. The third tank features a length of 28 meters with a diameter of 5 meters and a capacity of 550 cu. m.

With this amount of LNG the AIDAnova will be able to operate, depending of their speed, 10 to 14 days up to the next bunkering.

AIDAnova main particulars:
Ships name  AIDAnova
Yard  Meyer Werft Papenburg
In service  November 2018
Launching  August 31, 2018
Length  337 m
Width  42 m
Depth  8.8 m
Gross tonnage  183,900
Engine power  61,760 kW
Drive power  37,000 kW
Fuel  LNG/MDO
Speed  17 kn
Decks  20
Cabins  2,626 (21 different categories) 31 suites; 1,655 balcony cabins; 198 cabins with sea view; 312 inner cabins
Restaurants  17
Bars  23
Crew  1,400

(AIDAnova was a Great Ship of 2018 as published in the December 2018 edition of Maritime Reporter & Engineering News)