Unique partnership behind flexible solution
After several years at the drawing board, Stena RoRo ordered its first four E-Flexer vessels in 2016. Since then, an additional eleven have been ordered, fifteen in total, for six different ferry companies.
What makes the E-Flexer concept unique?
“It is unique in our market because we have managed to combine an extremely efficient hull design with the ability to adapt the other parts of the vessel to our customers’ needs. The most important feature in terms of reducing a vessel’s carbon emissions is to design the hull in the most efficient way possible, and consequently this is the basis for our E-Flexer design. The fact that we have then been able to include so many different versions of the vessel, and by doing so attract several large international ferry customers, is largely due to a unique partnership between our own project team, the shipyard’s design department and not least the Finnish shipbuilding agency Deltamarin, with which we have worked for many years,” says Staffan Stenfelt, General Manager Newbuildings at Stena RoRo.
How did you go about developing it?
“We designed and ordered the first four E-Flexer vessels in partnership with Stena Line, specifically for its route network. However, our hope was that other ferry operators would also need new highly efficient vessels in order to reduce their environmental impact. This turned out to be the case, but as different companies have different commercial and technical requirements, we began looking at the possibilities of modifying our original concept to also suit these new customers. Our strength in both technology and the market, combined with our experience of negotiating with shipyards, enabled us to attract several large ferry operators,” says Per Westling, MD of Stena RoRo.
What is demand like?
“The entire shipping industry is facing a huge shift in order to reduce its environmental impact. There are good opportunities in the ferry services sector to convert and significantly reduce the carbon footprint per transported unit compared with conventional vessels. The development of the E-Flexer concept means we can offer our customers vessels with highly efficient hulls that are also optimised in terms of their commercial and operational requirements. This, combined with multi-fuel engines and battery hybrid solutions for manoeuvring and propulsion, for example, leads us to believe there will be market demand for more vessels in the future,” says Per Westling.