Chinese Yards Attract Interest

The Finnish engineering company Deltamarin has opened a representative office in Shanghai, China, to facilitate contacts with Chinese yards for specialised vessels, such as ro-ro vessels, chemical and product tankers. China has become one of the major shipbuilders in the world with its shipbuilding capacity of 6 MDWT (in 2002) and 120 yards. During the past couple of years Deltamarin has been involved in the design of 70% of the ro-ro vessels built or under construction for West European shipowners by Chinese yards.

At the moment Ro-Ro vessels are being built for European owners at four shipyards in China and Deltamarin is involved in three of them. One of Deltamarin's designs is 'Finnmaster' class, a series of four ro-ro vessels built at the Jinling Shipyard and now chartered for Finnlines.

This design was appointed by ShipPax Information as winner of the 'Outstanding Ro-Ro Concept of 2000' title. Two larger twin screw ro-ro of 10,000 DWT are at the moment being built for the same owner.

Last summer Deltamarin concluded a contract with the Jinling Shipyard in Nanjing on the design of a product/chemical tanker for the Finnish energy company Fortum. Basic design with class approval and model tests is included in the scope as well as coordination design utilising 3D modelling technique for pump room and deck piping.