Damen announces expansion of successful Combi Freighter portfolio with three new Ice Class designs

Yesterday in Short Sea News we reported Damen Shipyards Group’s announcement of its latest cargo vessel design, the Combi Freighter (CF) 5000 ICE. At Europort, Damen’s Director Cargo Vessels Remko Bouma provided further details – and revealed further developments in the shipbuilder’s portfolio.

The CF 5000 ICE, Remko explained, was the result of market demand for a vessel that could handle operations in harsh Baltic winters. To answer this, Damen set out to develop a vessel that was efficient in open water, superior in ice.

“What we wanted, was a cargo hold as large as possible. And at the same time, a slender hull form for less resistance. It has been a challenge, but we have reached an optimal cargo hold of 7000 m3.”

 At the same time, the hold is extremely versatile with grain bulkheads that can be used as tween decks, as well as ample lashing points and container fittings. To combine this with efficient performance, Damen’s research department worked with MARIN (Marine Research Institute Netherlands) to optimise the hull form.

“Secondly, we needed to have the vessel ready for ice. For this we needed additional ice power – this we wanted to have as low as possible. We went into the ice baths at HSVA (Hamburg Ship Model Basin) to check the power we needed and optimised the hull further to reduce this.”

To ensure maximal efficiency, the ice power is provided by a PTO/PTI system powered by generator sets or batteries. In this way, the vessel will only need to use the additional power available when sailing in ice.

“The advantage is of course that the vessel will be sailing for 80% or 70% of the time in open water.”

Damen also discussed the vessel with Scandinavian ship owners experienced in working in ice. It was this input, Remko stated, that led to the vessel’s winterisation package – enabling it to operate in conditions down to -30 degrees Celsius and ensuring plenty of appropriate heating for crew comfort.

“It’s hard to get crew onboard, so, we’ve focussed on accommodation standards.” This he continued, includes not only high levels of comfort and privacy, but also the option to install a sauna.

The CF 5000 ICE also enjoys access to Damen’s IoT solution Triton. It is installed with thousands of sensors that collect data from all over the ship, which is then analysed by the system, offering, Remko says, a number of advantages.

“It means two things for the customer. It means you can read on a dashboard the performance of the vessel, and you can also product the reports you need for CII and ETS. For us, we can read how the vessel is behaving, and when we can measure this, we can improve further.”

A further consideration has been increasing sustainable performance. During the last four years, Remko stated, Damen has developed a series of options for its CF vessels to increase efficiency.

“We started with our CF 3850 vessel, which was already 20-30% percent better in terms of emissions than vessels delivered 15 years ago.”

These options include the capability to sail on 100% biofuel, shore connectivity, battery power and preparation for wind assisted propulsion.

The development of the new vessel is just one of many seen at Damen Cargo Vessels these past four years. With plenty of market activity and an ageing short sea fleet, the company has seen a lot of recent success – with almost 50 vessel sold, 38 of which have been delivered to date. While this has been going on, Remko said, Damen has been closely monitoring the performance of the vessels and listening closely to client feedback in order to make successive generations of its cargo vessels “better, cleaner and more reliable.”

Unsurprisingly, at Damen this means increasing levels of standardisation. Interestingly, Remko revealed, Damen is applying this approach to expanding its cargo vessel portfolio. This involves the offering of a CF 6000 ICE and a CF 7000 ICE, based on the design of the CF 5000 ICE.

“We will keep the fore and the aft exactly the same including the engine room, the machine room and propulsion etc. and we are going to extend the vessel mid ship. This gives a lot of advantages – for us as a shipbuilder, because we have a flexible building strategy, and for customer there is maximum exchangeability when you want to have more capacities in your fleet.”

Damen is planning to build the first CF 5000 ICE on speculation. The vessel is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2027.