Auriga-Leader

On Dec 29, 2011 afternoon a 25 year old Philippine sailor was airlifted from the "Auriga Leader", fifteen nautical miles west of Gozo, after falling ill and suffering severe chest pains whilst sailing through the Malta Channel while the vessel was sailing from Jacksonville to Port Said. The captain informed RCC Malta requesting medical evacuation assistance of his crew member at about 11 a.m. The AFM deployed one of its Alouette III rescue helicopters whose crew winched the sailor on board and ferried him to Mater Dei Hospital for further treatment.

Starting this month, Toyota’s hybrid cars might be arriving on a hybrid ship augmented by solar power. We first told you about the Auriga Leader, a 60,000 ton carrier that can ferry up to 6,200 cars, back in 2008. It was retrofitted with a giant bank of solar cells in hopes of reducing CO2 emissions and fuel use while carrying mostly Toyotas across the Pacific. During tests, solar energy made up for one percent of the ship’s total electricity usage — a small percentage, but enough to save 13 tons of fuel. However, solar power also turned out to be just too unreliable as even as a secondary standalone power source on such a large vessel, causing major spikes and shortages of electricity depending on cloud cover. “Even a slight change in the weather has a significant influence on the amount of power generated,” said NYK line, the Japanese operator of the Auriga Leader. Engineers looked into expanding the number of photovoltaic cells on board, but found that just exacerbated the problem of passing clouds and storms. ”Attempting to make the solar power system bigger to gain more output and to increase its dependency could result in problems with regard to stable operations due to fluctuations in the power supply,” the company said. Read more with photos http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/06/solar-car-carrier-sees-the-light-of-day-with-hybrid-power/

Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha (NYK Line), Kawasaki Heavy Industries, the Monohakobi Technology Institute (MTI) and Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK) are to begin in June shipboard tests to verify the effects of a jointly developed hybrid power supply system for vessels. The innovative system will be installed on NYK Line’s solar-power-assisted car carrier Auriga Leader (60,213 gross tons), which will also be fitted with a ballast-water management system and adapted to use low-sulfur fuel to further strengthen environmental measures. The power generation and endurance of the photovoltaic panels on Auriga Leader have been undergoing shipboard tests since the completion of the vessel on December 19, 2008. http://www.supplychainreview.com.au/news/articleid/73957.aspx