SDARI and NAPA to cooperate on ship performance to aid design

The expanded cooperation agreement was signed by Hu Jin-Tao, president of SDARI, and Juha Heikinheimo, president of NAPA, at Marintec China 2013, on Tuesday.

The two companies said cooperation had been expanded to ship monitoring due to the shift in focus from the industry to save on operating costs in the face of persistently high bunker prices.

Heikinheimo said that the main driver for added ship performance monitoring was from owners who both wanted to operate their ships using less fuel but at the same time with more cargo. “The biggest interest is from the shipowners," Hu agreed.

The issue though was getting the figures with few shipowners or operators providing feedback. While sea trials can provide feedback Hu noted these were carried out in ballast conditions so they did not know how the ship operated when it was loaded. “We want to get the feedback on how the real ship is operating. It is very essential for the designers to get feedback,” Hu said.

Hu said the feedback could be used in the development of new designs and recommendations for retrofitting existing vessel.

SDARI a member of CSSC and sees around 300 vessels a year built in China to its designs. It has been cooperating with NAPA since 2000 and expanded the cooperation in 2011 to include loading tools from the maritime software specialist.