NYK gets second module carrier equipped with innovative air-lubrication system

On November 29, NYK-Hinode Line Ltd. took delivery of a new module carrier that was built at the Koyagi Plant of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ Nagasaki Shipyard & Machinery Works.

The vessel, named Yamato, has been equipped with an innovative air-lubrication system that uses bubbles to reduce frictional resistance. Yamato is the second vessel to Yamatai, which is the world’s first vessel for overseas transport to have permanent installation of air-lubrication system

At a naming ceremony held at the shipyard on 17 November, Sumio Kinoshita, President of NYK-Hinode Line Ltd. named the ship Yamato, and the ceremonial rope holding the vessel in place was cut by the wife of Takashi Kubota, President and CEO of the Chiyoda Corporation.

Hisashi Hara, Director and Executive Vice President of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., and Shinji Kobayashi, a Senior Advisor at NYK, were also in attendance.

The vessel has been equipped with an innovative air-lubrication system that generates bubbles by supplying air to the vessel bottom, thus reducing the frictional resistance between the vessel’s bottom and the seawater.

The system is expected to reduce CO2-emissions from the vessel by 10 percent. This equipment is subsidised through Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s “Support for Technology Development from Marine Vessels for Curtailing CO2” project for fiscal 2010, and is also supported by ClassNK.