Page 29: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (December 2021)

GREAT SHIPS of 2021

Jim Paterson, Marine Executive Consultant, Mercy Ships, from a variety of sources all integrated by the EVAC team. has been with the charitable organization for more than three When operating properly the discharge should be fresh water decades. While this unexpected career trek has come with and ash from the incinerator. One of our biggest challenges in many memorable moments, 2021 will stand out as the year the ports we go to is fresh potable water, because we're sitting when Mercy Ships received its ? rst purpose-built newbuild, there for so long. We have to rely usually on water supply

Global Mercy, a “Great Ship of 2021.” from the shore, sometimes not a problem, sometimes it can be

Having lived through the pitfalls of a conversion project, a struggle. So we're looking at how can we put a water maker the organization started exploring a newbuild, and 2010 the on board that will actually make water from harbor water, and decision was taken by the board to pursue new construction. that's easier said than done. We do collect, treat and ? lter the “We weren’t used to building new ships, our broker friend condensate water from the Air Handlers and use it for techni-

Gilbert Walter from BRS introduced us to Stena RoRo, who cal water such as laundry water.” had experience building ships,” said Paterson. So in partner- In terms of fuel for the ship, ultra low sulfur diesel was ship with Stena RoRo, a Tender Package was prepared and a the choice, as alternatives such as LNG were not an option bid package was sent out by BRS to 12 globally, with Tianjin premised on the ship’s area of operation and fuel availability.

Shipyard in Tianjin, China, emerging the winner to build the “One of our biggest challenges at the moment is availability world’s largest civilian hospital ship. of some of these alternative fuels. In West Africa there's not

In designing the new ship, the ? rst consideration was size, a lot to choose from, so we're stuck with diesel for the time both to accommodate the needed crew, staff and medical fa- being. But the ship can burn different fuels, and in the future cilities, but also a ship that wasn’t too big, as it is usually on (fuel selection) may change.” scene for up to 10 months at a time, and many of the African Other technical features include sophisticated self-tension- ports are still developing, space constrained and extremely ing winches to hold the ship steady for operations, and two busy. “So the ship is 174 meters long with a 28.6 meter beam large cranes capable of lifting 31 tons for lifting supplies on and a 6.4 meter maximum draft, which allows it to go into and off. “We send a couple of containers every month to keep quite a wide number of ports and not take up too much space,” the hospital going, and of course supply food, too.” said Paterson. With 12 decks and a gross tonnage of approxi- Aside from the challenges presented by COVID, Paterson mately 38,000, “it's a big volume and a relatively short length” said the newbuild process proceeded relatively smoothly, par- which allows for a 7,000-square-meter hospital including six ticularly given that this was the largest civilian hospital ship operating rooms and 202 beds total, which includes 90 “low of international class ever built. “We were blessed to have a care beds for pre- and post-op that don't need nursing care.” senior surveyor from Lloyd's Register who had quite a bit of “The ship is diesel electric (4 x Wärtsilä 6L32s, just under welding experience, and he actually taught the shipyard how 3MW) because we spend such a long time tied up alongside, to weld thin plate without buckling it,” said Paterson. “So the we want to maximize the installed power plant, so we rotate shipyard was grateful for that, and after the ? rst couple of the generators through on a regular basis,” said Paterson. De- blocks, I've heard people comment, ‘You couldn't get blocks signed by DeltaMarin in Finland, the ship uses ABB pods for better than this in Europe.’” propulsion for a 12-knot service speed. One hurdle to overcome early was the ‘Safe Return to Port’ “The amount of fuel that we use to push the ship through the mandate, “which actually set us back quite a bit on the design water is quite small. The biggest electrical load actually is the period. The safe return to port says you have to have an ad- air conditioning, and the air conditioning is probably the most vised speed of 6 knots in Beaufort force eight if you lose half complex part of the ship,” said Paterson. “We used Trident your propulsion. Well, if you only have 12 knots to start with to do the design of the air conditioning and also the commis- and you're trying to do six knots at Beaufort force eight, that's sioning. The HVAC equipment is primarily comprised of four quite a challenge.

York Centrifugal Chiller Units and Flakt Woods Air Handlers. Working with the designers, the shipyard, the ? ag state

Air? ow in the hospital is quite dif? cult, and also keeping it as (Malta) and LR, the ABB pods ended up as the game changer energy ef? cient as possible with 100% fresh air. That took a as steering the ship at slower speeds in rough conditions was lot of effort from Trident commissioning engineers.” achievable. “You can steer a ship, basically, just over zero “But otherwise, the ship is pretty much like any passenger knots with podded propulsion,” said Paterson. “So once the ship/RoRo ferry in terms of the construction; nothing too com- shipyard got comfortable with that, we moved ahead. During plicated,” said Paterson. “We do have quite a sophisticated the tank tests, she was doing six knots on one pod no problem. waste management system on board, of course. We've got an At sea trials, although the design speed is 12 knots, we actu- advanced membrane reactor for treating the sewage produced ally were sailing along at 16 knots at one point. So she far by EVAC. The rest of the dry waste processing plant came outperformed her design.” www.marinelink.com 29

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