The Chinese shipyard China Merchants Jinling Shipyard (Jiangsu) delivered Finneco II, the second of three hybrid ro-ro vessels to Finnlines. Finneco I joins its the sister vessel, Finneco I, that was delivered to the fleet in April. The third vessel, Finneco III, will be delivered during June.

All three vessels will sail under the Finnish flag and will enter Finnlines’ Baltic sea, North Sea and Biscay traffic.

Finnlines’ €500 million ($535.7 million) newbuilding program also includes two eco-sustainable Superstar ro-pax vessels scheduled to be delivered in 2023.

Finneco II is 238 metres long with a cargo capacity of 5,800 lane metres. Consequently, the vessel can carry 400 trailers per voyage. Compared with the largest vessels in today’s Finnlines fleet, the cargo carrying capacity of the hybrid newbuilds will increase by nearly 40 percent.

Nevertheless, efficient cargo operations will be ensured by arrangement of stern ramps, internal ramps, and hoistable car decks. At the same the vessels will be extremely flexible – a hoistable deck makes it possible to load any type of rolling freight up to seven metres. Certain areas on cargo decks have been dedicated for loading of paper reels. The vessel will have the highest Finnish/Swedish ice class.

Finneco II exceeding environmental standards

The classification society Rina has assigned an additional class notation “Green Plus” for the vessel’s environmental performance. The vessel has been fitted with two-stroke main engines, which have a lower specific fuel consumption than four-stroke engines. An air lubrication system under the keel will reduce frictional and hydrodynamic resistance and consequently reduce fuel consumption and emissions. Zero emissions during port calls can be achieved with a battery power bank of 5 MW. The batteries are recharged during sailing and 600 m2 of solar panels will also generate power. Furthermore, an exhaust gas cleaning system will cut air emissions and reduce harmful particles.

“Our ongoing €500 million newbuilding program follows our strategy and we continue to deploy larger and larger vessels to benefit from economies of scale. The new ships exceed high environmental standards and ensure a reliable supply of goods to and from Finland. For our customers new vessels means more capacity and better connections. Our connections to Europe and vice versa will improve greatly when the Finneco trio starts to operate on their routes,” says Emanuele Grimaldi, chairman of the Board, Finnlines.