AS Tallink Grupp has christened its new ferry, the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG)-driven Megastar at the Meyer Turku shipyard in Finland. The environmentally sound ship was christened by former president of Finland Tarja Halonen. Approximately 64% complete, the ferry is expected to be ready for service in early 2017.
Mr. Janek Stalmeister, the CEO of AS Tallink Grupp remarked: “We are also very honoured for having President Halonen as the Godmother, as this is a high acknowledgement to the ship’s exceptionally developed environmental indicators. Megastar will be a good messanger from that perspective to the whole industry.”
“The interesting part of our type of shipbuilding is that we have demanding customers that push the boundaries – also for the environment. So we are very happy that today our latest LNG ferry is taking shape and after 1½ years of design and production work starts to look like a ship.
The steel cutting for Megastar started on 4th of August 2015, the keel was laid on February 9th and the float-out and sea-trials are planned for July and the last months of 2016 respectively. The delivery of the vessel is planned to take place in the beginning of 2017.
Megastar will be 212 meters long and will accommodate altogether 2800 passengers having the same length and capacity as the largest cruise ferry of the company, the Baltic Queen.
Megastar will use LNG as fuel, but will also be able to run on diesel. With LNG, her environmental performance will improve much by creating no sulphur or soot particles and decreasing the nitrogen and CO2 emissions. She will be a 49 000 GT ship with a service speed of 27 knots. Designed for the Tallinn-Helsinki route exclusively, Megastar will comply with the current and future emission regulations for the ECAs (Emission Control Area), including the Baltic Sea.
The vessel is co-financed by EU, CEF (Connecting Europe Facility) with EUR 4.8 million (USD 5.3 m).
(Source: AS Tallink Grupp)
