Definitely talking about innovations in ship-building we should mention the car carrier Auriga Leader. The ship was finished at the end of 2008 year by the Asian ship-builder Nippon Yusen K.K. but yesterday was launched by the ship-operator NYK Line. The car carrier has 200.00 meters length and beam of 32.26 meters. The depth of the ship is 34.52 meters and while fully loaded the ship has draft of 9.70 meters. The car carrier Auriga Leader is really not so large ship, but new, modern and so much innovated. The feature, which got our attention was integrated 328 solar panels on board, which will give about 10% from the power of the cargo vessel. The ship has deadweight of 18,758 metric tons and gross tonnage of 60,213 gross tons. The cargo capacity of the car carrier is 6,400 units. The ship was designed and built in Kobe Shipyard in Japan, which is high prove for quality of the ship and materials used.
The car carrier will be the first of the new generation ships, driven by solar power. Actually on board of Auriga Leader is inserted only a little solar panels, which will reduce the main engine work and will decrease the fuel consumption, at too high price. The price for the new innovation on board was 1.6 million USD, which actually will be pretty hard to be refunded and the proper work for long time is still not sure, but ship-owners decided to invest in technology.
Actually the panels are not installed directly on the ship, but are rather installed on the ship’s car-carrier and then connected to the ship. The technology is in case to protect the solar panels from bad weather and sea. The ship is now on bearth of Port of Long Beach and even before entering into service got the interest of the all community. The ship will be open for visitors to see this innovation in ship-building before being equipped for traveling between Japan and Europe. The car carrier is engaged with contract with Toyota Corp for carrying automobile for the company to markets in Europe and North America.
