Seafaring commuters in Bahia will soon be travelling on board a dual-fuel natural gas & diesel fuelled ferry, built by TWB in Navegantes and currently en route to Salvador where it will commence operations on the Salvador to Itaparica Island. Estimated fuel use rates are 70% natural gas, 30% diesel. Travel times for the $35 million dollar ferry over the seven mile route will be less than half of that taken by ferries currently servicing the route. The boat has 4 converted engines CATERPILLAR C-18, 600HP each (generating 30 nautical miles per hour of speed) and 2 generators CATERPILLAR C9-DI, 400HP-1800rpm each.
Conversion of the engines to natural gas was undertaken by the Institute of Energy of the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro who designed and built the systems. The objective of this system is to reduce pollution in this tourism area of Bahia.
The vessel has 20 Type 3 compressed natural gas (CNG) cylinders on board with 310 liters water capacity each and 240 bar working pressure.
Initial refueling infrastructure will be via natural gas tube bundles supplied by a company called CDGN, contracted to the local gas distributor, BahiaGas. The boat has been designed by Stuart Ballantyne, from Sea Transport Solutions-Australia. The length of the boat is 54.4 meters and the width is 16.5 meters.
Operations are scheduled to commence on August 19th, after the delivery trip from Navigantes and will be launched with a big show headed by Ivete Sangalo, a popular Brazilian singer born in that city, whose name was given to the boat.
TWB have put together a website with some details and photos of the vessel (in Portuguese).
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