The Italian ship design company, best known in the ferry industry for the ‘Visentini ships’, a series of 30 cost- and energy-efficient RoPax ferries to date, has won a ship design tender against two other European ship design companies.

PT Pelni initially plans to order three newbuildings based on the new design. However, the Indonesian operator’s broader plan is to progressively replace its existing fleet of large, combined cargo and passenger ships, which form a central part of the transport infrastructure connecting Indonesia’s many islands and regions.

Between 1983 and 2008, PT Pelni took delivery of 24 large newbuildings in this category from Germany’s Meyer Werft in Papenburg. The series comprised three classes, with passenger capacities ranging from 1,000 in the smallest to 3,000 in the largest. Three smaller ships designed by Meyer Werft were also built locally.

In 2016, PT Pelni signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Meyer Werft for the development and construction of a newbuilding, but this preliminary agreement never resulted in a firm contract.

NAOS Ship and Boat Design has told Shippax that the new generation of ships for PT Pelni will have a length overall of 120 metres and capacity for 1,000 passengers. The ships will also have a cargo capacity of 70 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units).

© Shippax

The new generation is being developed to be able to use wind-assisted propulsion. © © NAOS Ship and Boat Design