The Ship of the Year award given by the Japan Society of Naval Architects and Ocean Engineers had 10 vessels to choose from this year, the 28th year of the annual event.The Ship of the Year award is given to innovative vessels built in the past year based on technical, artistic and social considerations.
The candidate announcement meeting and the selection meeting for the Ship of the Year Award 2017 were held on May 14 at the Meiji Kinenkan in Minato-ku, Tokyo, and the 20,000TEU class containership MOL TRUTH, the biggest Japanese-built vessel of this category, came out as the winner.
The 12 members who were present, out of the total of 13 incumbent selection committee members, made the choice of the MOL TRUTH, winning a majority of nine in the first voting out of the 12 committee members. As the vessel had such advantages of high transportation efficiency embodying diverse energy-efficiency features in addition to the economy of scale of the world's largest class containership, capable of carrying 20,000TEUs in its huge hull measuring 400 meters in overall length, the vessel gained the title of the Ship of the Year 2017.
The winners of individual sectors included the AZALEA (large passenger ship sector), the TRANS HARMONY 1 (large cargo ship sector), the TAKASU (small passenger ship sector), the HYPER-ECO (small cargo ship sector), the TENYO MARU (fishing and work vessel sector) and the KAIRYU (offshore structure/equipment sector).
The prize awarding ceremony, a joint event organized by the three academic societies in the maritime science sector, took place on July 13 at the Kaiun Club.
The car ferry AZALEA built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.(present Mitsubishi Shipbuilding Co.- MSC) entered shuttle service between Otaru (Hokkaido) and Niigata in June 2017. The ship was designed by adopting the advanced energy-saving hull form, Proximity Twin-Screw System, and Mitsubishi Air Lubrication System (MALS) to reduce hull resistance and improve propulsion efficiency to achieve increased navigation speed and reduced fuel consumption compared with the previous vessel.
Based on the concept of "harmony of humans and the global environment," the vehicle carrier was designed using safety technologies such as night-vision devices to achieve zero accidents on board the ship. The hull form with less wind resistance and various energy-saving technologies reduces fuel consumption by 17% (or CO2 by 52% per cargo unit in transport). The original inboard lighting system and heat-insulation coating provides comfortable living and working environments for the crew.
The TAKASU is a high-speed catamaran-type hydrofoil craft plying between isolated islands off the coast of Nagasaki Prefecture. The ferry has slender hull form and upright stems that make the ship's waterline length longer. Wave-making resistance can be reduced by the surface effect of hydrofoils installed between the hulls. Full-automatic controllable flaps attached to the foils alleviate the rolling and pitching motions for more comfortable cruising.
The HYPER-ECO is a energy-conscious coasting cargo ship, which was designed with the optimized hull form and has adopted the latest technologies, i.e., contra-rotating propeller, hybrid propulsion system, LV Fin, rudder bulb, etc. The main propulsion system consists of the main diesel engine and shaft generator. The shaft generator is also used as an electric motor drive at low ship speeds. Hybrid ship operation is thus achieved with low noise and vibration.
The TENYO MARU is a fishery exploration and training ship with dual purposes: training of maritime officers and fishery investigation and research. Besides various fishing devices, radars, and sounders, the ship is equipped with hybrid propulsion system for engineer training, and SCR, a water-mixture fuel generator, and power-system monitoring system for training to cope with environmental conservation.
JASNAOE
