A new autopilot on board the “Fionia Sea” is set to achieve significant fuel savings. According to the manufacturer Anschütz, this can even amount to up to 5%.
The “Fionia Sea” is a 187 m long RoRo ferry (roll-on/roll-off) with two engines, which is used in the liner service between Great Britain and the Netherlands. It is owned by the shipping company Leomar RoRo and managed by AdMare Ship Management AB.
As part of the shipping company’s decarbonisation strategy, Anschütz has already equipped the sister ships “Corona Sea” and “Hafnia Sea” with the new autopilot.
Autopilot as part of the decarbonisation strategy
“We have an ambitious strategy to increase efficiency and reduce emissions on our ships,” says Carl-Johan Eriksson, Safety and Sustainability Manager at AdMare Ship Management. “Anschütz autopilots are part of our solution and have already proven their efficient steering performance on our vessels.”
According to the manufacturer, the NautoPilot 5400 NX supports efforts to reduce fuel consumption and emissions with a range of features, including an ECO mode and a heading control mode, both of which reduce the frequency and amplitude of rudder movements, thereby reducing fuel consumption. To make the current steering performance and the quality of the parameter settings transparent, the autopilot has a graphical display of a course and rudder plot so that the operator can optimize the settings at any time.
Special advantage for twin rudder ships
On ships with twin rudders such as the “Fionia Sea”, the unique toe angle function makes a significant contribution to reducing fuel consumption. The toe angle enables the autopilot to control the individual rudder angles, which reduces the drag caused by the vortex fields of the two rudders and thus significantly reduces fuel consumption. A computerised fluid dynamics analysis, fuel tank tests and onboard investigations showed fuel savings of up to 5% when the rudder angles were set efficiently.
“We are very pleased that the performance of our autopilot has convinced our customer and that we have received another order for retrofitting with our NautoPilot 5400 NX,” says Jörn Fischbach, Area Sales Manager at Anschütz.
The retrofit was carried out as part of the 5-year renewal at a shipyard in Poland until June 2024, with the competent and reliable support of Anschütz’s long-standing partner, Syberg Sweden.
