Page 30: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 2020)

REPAIR & CONVERSION

You have to stand on an exposed seawall protecting a tiny bility together with the ability to keep a high service speed

Norwegian village’s little marina to realize how “the basics” in bad weather,” Hammerfest Hospital said of the order. The must be in place before you can mimic the security of town tender revealed a demand that vessels be comfortable travel- life. ling 254 km in rough seas on trips that could take 1.5 hours

The yellow ambulance vessel bobbing up and down along- (vs. 4 by road ambulance). The tender contract con? rms the side two camou? aged patrol boats is not, we tell ourselves, “retractable bow wings” tipped the scales of safey and confort where you want to end up should you need emergency hos- in Lindstol’s favor. The document also con? rms Wavefoil’s pital transport through major sea states. Yet, when people get designs are backed up by the “stately” Norwegian Research hurt living among these parts, they prefer boat ambulance Council, export enabling agency Innovasjon Norge and uni- over those that come by air or road. Travel times are three- versity spin-off entity, NTNU Discovery. The 22 m boat’s times shorter. Volvo Penta IPS 1050 will help it do 32 knots carrying 12 pas-

Fast-forward 10 years, and the 3D impression of another sengers, plus two stretcher holders. Passenger access appears ambulance launch catches our eye at Nor-Shipping in south- to be from three decks via stretcher davits; ? oating dock or ern Norway. “Can I help you,” asks Wavefoil sales engineer, high pier, with ramps between deck.

Michael Paulsen. We ask about the yellow ambulance catama- ran at his stand, and he tells us it’s the future property of Lop- Stable Ro-Pax pa Legeskyss, a company that’ll operate an ambulance service After that conference encounter with Paulsen, we meet him in northern Norway’s remote Finnmark county. A high-speed again on an October 2019 fact-? nding trip in Trondheim. He catamaran, it’s a $22 million project that’ll cost $1 million a seems a little more stressed this time but in good spirits. year to operate. The winning tender shows how catamarans Then in November we learn why: Wavefoil was having one sporting a Wavefoil stabilizer can be competitive on cost and of those critical business months the founders of start-ups talk comfort. about. We learn than a pilot project with Faroese ferry opera- “The tender company won that job due to the Wavefoil. tor SSL has been a major success both in terms of business

It offered the best combination of speed and comfort,” says and in obtaining performance numbers for pre- and post-in-

Paulsen. Indeed, the ambulance operator offered to shorten stallations of the Wavefoil stabilizers. Suddenly for Paulsen, by an hour the up-to three-hour journey to Hammerfest hos- it seems they’re on the path to becoming a go-to company pital. It’ll do that by travelling 10 knots faster for the same for retro? t and newbuild foils. “We’ll post something on this. amount of comfort as a vessel unequipped without the Wave- We have the fuel consumption for that ferry for the last three foil. The installation aboard an Alusafe CAT 21 designed by years. We have November versus the average time, and No-

Lindstoel Skip in southern Norway is scheduled for June 2020 vember with foils produced a 15% reduction,” he says. As at Maritime Partner in Aalesund. “The (ambulance boat) has with all foils, the pitch and roll improved, but most impor- been evaluated based on hull strength, manouverability, sta- tantly, the 45-meter ferry has been used “all the time” — de-

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Deployment

The deployed Wavefoil wings aboard the Faro- ese Ro-Pax ferry, Teistin.

Photos: Handout 30 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • January 2020

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