I like the idea of battery powered ships for short haul ferries. I'm expecting nuclear-powered civilian ships like the Savannah, Otto Hahn, Mutsu, and all the Russian icebreakers to be the better solution for longer haul cargo, tanker, and cruise ships.
I'm quite surprised that they went for what looks like a high-speed catamaran, as these are historically fairly energy-expensive. They used to be commonly used for the Ireland-Britain routes, say, but were largely withdrawn as fuel got expensive; they just got too expensive to operate vs conventional craft.
EDIT: Ah. It looks like it actually won't be very high speed in normal operation; 25 knots.
It would be interesting to find out how this short-haul Electric vehicle will be transported from Hobart, Tasmania to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
It's long distance and can be rough seas. In fact it's so far that I can't be sure if they would go East or West, neither seems compellingly better offhand.
You could do a lot of things, none of them are trivial. I'm curious as to which they choose and why.
e.g. If your choice is towing a 225 car ferry around either Cape Agulhas or Tierra del Fuego, then more than trivial planning will be involved. And likely, waiting for the right time of year. i.e. Not winter in June -> September.
From there list hulls 102, and 103 have slightly larger battery storage of 45MWh batteries, these replacing previous Incat Catamarans on the Aarhus-Sjællands Odde route, one I know quite well.
When I was in central Norway, I took a fjord cruise on a very large electric boat. The largest I've ever seen anywhere. It was amazing and a highlight of the trip.
It was just such a better experience quietly drifting along this beautiful and scenic place. It made me realize how loud normal boats are.
We took the ferry from Iceland to Denmark via the Faroe Islands. The entire multi day trip our cabin stank of diesel fumes because of how the wind was blowing the exhaust.
Crew said it was normal, my headache didn’t agree.
> The two cities are 60 kilometers apart, a distance Hull 096 is expected to travel in 90 minutes. Direct current charging stations will be installed at each port, and will draw energy from the two countries’ grids. A full charge is expected to take just 40 minutes.
More details on how this works would also be cool. But would it be that different from one or more scaled up EV fast chargers?
We can assume that the boat won't need a full charge after each 90 minute journey. In other words, "top up" recharging while docked for loading and unloading for the normal period of time will be fine.
