Flensburg: The RoPax ferry ‘Loch Seaforth’, built for the Scottish owner Caledonian Maritime Assests Limited (CMAL), has left Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (FSG) today.
FSG Managing Director Peter Sierk said he was delighted his team had delivered a ship that had posted such outstanding results in her field trials. “The ship’s fuel consumption was about nine percent below what we had pledged in the contract”, he said. Loch Seaforth also delighted her owners by demonstrating excellent sea-keeping characteristics and speed performance.
Because of all this, the 117 m long Loch Seaforth can now begin regular liner shipping service between Stornoway and Ullapool towards the end of the year. She will link the mainland of northwestern Scotland with the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides. Her top quality, modern design and construction makes the new ferry well-suited for 24 hour, round-the-clock operation and she will replace two older ferries on the route. The Loch Seaforth has space on board for up to 700 passengers and 142 cars (or 20 trucks).
“It was for just this reason that our customers made the highest possible demands on this product”, Peter Sierk reported. The ship is expected to operate reliably and without problem while maintaining a 24-hour, round-the-clock timetable and Sierk said the results of the sea trials had confirmed, impressively, that she would do just that. “The building of Loch Seaforth demonstrates once again that we are successful when it comes to tailor-made and innovative solutions which benefit our customers. That is our particular strength”, he continued. “We understand what the customer wants, concentrate on coming to grips with that and, in the end, come up with a tailor-made concept for him which continues to be honed during construction and which in the end
is even better than what the contract offered. That’s something you find almost nowhere else”, Sierk declared.
Follow us on Twitter