Feature 3 | RO-RO FERRY REPORT Flensburg boosts trailership capacity
Trough the adaptation of the last vessels in the series at a late stage in the construction programme, substantial gains in capacity and unit cost efficiency have been achieved with Cobelfret’s already highly versatile, new class of German-built ro-ro freight carrier, reports David Tinsley.
B lending the Belgian owner’s
through-transport and shortsea expertise with Flensburger
Schiffbau-Gesellschaft’s skills in ro-ro design and production, the first four vessels of the ConRo220 type, starting with Mazarine, were delivered in a three-deck configuration. Te recently commissioned fiſth and sixth ships, Opaline and Amandine respectively, have each been completed with four fixed freight decks. Te modified version of the ConRo220
gives a 35% increase in linear ro-ro cargo intake, using the same engine plant and power, and within the same length, as that of the preceding vessels. Te adoption of sponsons, or shell blisters, to confer extra stability, has added an extra 3.8m to the beam in the mid-body section. Giving first form to the ConRo220
design towards the end of 2009, Mazarine afforded the requisite flexibility to sustain and develop Cobelfret’s business mix of general freight, industrial shipments and factory-new vehicles. Te vessel can take up to 845TEU or 2907 lane-metres of ro-ro freight. It was followed by sisters Palatine, Vespertine and Peregrine. Te four-deck Opaline, commissioned
towards the end of 2010, raised the potential ro-ro payload to the equivalent of 3923 lane-metres. Amandine, incorporating the same arrangements has been phased into duty this year alongside Opaline on the owner’s service linking Rotterdam with the Humberside terminal of North Killingholme. Te capacity is on a par with that of two previous deliveries from Flensburg, Cobelfret’s
five-deck
Humbermax sisters Pauline and Yasmine, which brought new scale economies to the North Sea trade in 2007. Te ConRo220 type as encapsulated in
Mazarine can accommodate 217 trailers, on the basis of 12.5m mafi-type units. Te new version embodied in Opaline provides for 122 mafi rolltrailers of 12.5m, on the
56
Opaline leaving the Flensburger shipyard. (Courtesy: Julian Kleinefield).
main deck and tanktop lower hold, plus 155 trailers of 13.955m on the upper and weather decks, or a corresponding mix. Te ConRo concept is ideally suited to key
“The modified version of the ConRo220 gives a 35% increase in linear ro-ro cargo intake, using the same engine plant and power, and within the same length, as that of the preceding vessels”
elements of the Cobelfret service network, where combinations of trailers, containers double-stacked on mafis or cassettes, and new cars, sustain flows of retail goods and industrial products between the Benelux region and the British Isles and Scandinavia.
All cargo handling is through a 20m-wide
stern door/ramp supplied by TTS, and which gives access to two openings, one being the entrance to the main deck, and the other being the fixed ramp accessing the upper trailer deck. On the Mazarine type, the latter is the weatherdeck. In the Opaline, this upper deck forms a garage giving a free height of 4.8m, with openings on each side between the vertical frames so as to allow natural ventilation. A fixed ramp leads from the upper trailer deck to the surmounting, fourth freight deck, the weatherdeck. Another internal fixed ramp serves transfers between the main deck and tanktop hold. Cobelfret has long played an important
role in automotive logistics, as regards both European inter-factory component movements and shipments of new vehicles. A decision to fit a car deck section in the ConRo class from Flensburg was taken too late for the installation to be made during the production of the ships. As a consequence, Cobelfret implemented a post-delivery retrofit programme covering all six vessels, and contracted the Polish company Navikon to undertake the work at the latter‘s Swinoujscie premises. For its part, the Flensburg yard provided certain technical support to the shipowner, such as additional stability calculations. The car deck, reached by hoistable
ramp incorporated on the starboard side, is located in the furthest forward area of
The Naval Architect April 2011
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