FSG Shipyard Launches First of Two RoRo Ferries for Turkish Customer

On Friday, August 3, 2012, Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft successfully launched the first of two identical RoRo freight ferry new buildings for the Turkish shipping company Ulusoy Sealines.

“At 208 metres, this is the longest and biggest freight ferry ever built at FSG”, declared shipyard Managing Director Peter Sierk. He added that it was a very significant moment for him and the entire shipbuilding team at FSG to see the “Ulusoy 14” slide into the Flensburg Fiord without a problem.

Ulusoy Sealines has ordered two of the modern freight ferries from FSG for service on the route between Cesme and Trieste where the Flensburg new buildings will replace not just two but four older ferries. They have almost the same freight capacity as the old units, but will consume significantly less fuel and will have considerably less waste gas emissions. Sierk said “as far as energy efficiency and deadweight capacity are concerned, our yard can now claim a further milestone with the latest ferries. Building on the experience gained with the 14 ferries built so far for U.N RoRo, our engineers have succeeded in further optimising the latest designs to make them even more economic, efficient and eco-friendly”, he said. This means the yard has once again lived up to its reputation as a frontrunner in research and development, he declared.

“Today is a very important one for Ulusoy Sealines and for the shipbuilders of Flens- burg because it is part of a perfect success story”, Peter Sierk added, and he particularly thanked everyone at FSG for their enormous efforts.

He also said it was, above all, thanks to the financial clout of Ulusoy Sealines that the financing of these two new buildings had been made possible, but that it was also be- cause of the good co-operation with the KfW Ipex-Bank GmbH and with Euler Hermes Exportkreditversicherung. “Ulusoy Sealines and ourselves are happy to have such strong and dependable partners in the same boat as us. Only in this way can projects of this size be successfully translated into action to the satisfaction of all concerned”, said Peter Sierk.

While the hand-over of “Ulusoy 14” is not scheduled to take place until October this year, the keel of the second new building for Ulusoy Sealines is being laid this coming Monday, August 6th. Her launch is planned for November 2nd 2012 and her delivery for January 2013. Each of the ships has space for 283 trailers and a loading capacity of 4,094 lane metres.

Currently in the yard’s order book are the following ships, in addition to the already mentioned two RoRo freight ferries for Ulusoy Sealines in Turkey: a RoRo freight ferry for U.N. Ro-Ro (Turkey), a ConRo ferry for a Canadian shipping company, two multi- functional project load vessels for Rolldock (Netherlands), two offshore seismic ships for WesternGeco (England) and a RoPax ferry for CMAL (Scotland). Other very promi- sing projects are also currently being intensively worked on.

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Source: FSG-Ship, August 6, 2012