Cruise and Ferry Review - Summer/Spring 2020

1 7 7 Tallink’s LNG-fuelled flagship Megastar operates between Helsinki and Tallinn (HVSC). The Port of Stockholm in Sweden has helped to pioneer this technology in the Baltic Sea region and two of our ships already use the HVSC there. Soon, we will have two more ships using shore power in the region as other ports, such as the Port of Tallinn in Estonia, are currently investing in hardware to facilitate HVSC. In the coming years, this will enable us to use shore power during longer port stays in our regular destinations. In addition, we are working with Finnish start-up Fleetrange on a performance monitoring system called Nautic AI. The system is currently under development but aims to provide a comprehensive data collection and analysis tool to manage the entire fleet, enhancing our ability to produce relevant reports in the future. An important development milestone for us will be the completion of our newbuild MyStar, scheduled for the end of 2021. MyStar will make use of the same LNG and diesel-electric solution that is installed on our flagship vessel Megastar, which became the first LNG- powered shuttle vessel when she entered service on the Tallinn-Helsinki route in January 2017. We view this as the most future-proof solution at present. We are already seeing new fuels emerging into the market, such as hydrotreated vegetable oil or gas-to- liquids fuels. These can be considered as mid-term, transitionary solutions that are helping ferry operators on the way to meeting the global greenhouse gas reduction targets. There are also other revolutionary developments underway, which will hopefully enable the full decarbonisation of the shipping industry in the future. CFR Tarvi-Carlos Tuulik is chief captain and head of ship management at Tallink Grupp “Tallink Grupp is welcoming cooperation with universities, IT start-ups and companies in the maritime industry”