Corporate book 2015 | Rensen-Driessen Shipbuilding BV

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We are the guest of Dr. Wolfgang Honemann, managing director of Rhenus Logistics and Herbert Berger, manager of the techni- cal department at the head office of Rhenus PartnerShip in Duis- burg-Ruhrort. They are pleased to give a detailed explanation of the construction of the ms RHENUS DUISBURG: before the order is given to design and build a new ship within our own fleet, an extensive examination takes place within the framework of Rhe- nus Logistics’ mission ‘Together with Passion’ on how a new ship will add value to the quality and reliability of service to their cus- tomer. ‘You cannot just deploy a ship from the market’ says Ho- nemann, ‘Every customer, every load, each route and transport plan demands a specific performance that we must bring about together with our customer’ he continues and gives an example. The shipping of agricultural bulk on the Danube requires a dif- ferent approach than the transport flows to the industrial hinter- land of the Rhine. Honemann: the container transport that we maintain within our 45 scheduled transport services constitutes approximately 20% of our transports. The remaining 80% of the (bulk) load consists of building materials, minerals, chemicals, coals and agricultural products. Last year our share in the transport on the European inland wa- terways amounted to 456 million tonnes. When the load is of strategic importance for the recipient additional agreements are made that do not frustrate a ‘just-in-time’ process. We heard for instance that a chemical factory could not be supplied over wa- ter through an obstruction of the Rhine. Within Rhenus Logistics a previously defined redundancy plan was immediately imple- mented: replacement transport by train and truck. If it is neces- sary unexpectedly, the same solution can also be applied within transport contracts for the provisioning of coal burning power plants. Within the normal daily course of events everything possible is done with tight and realistic sailing schedules to guarantee the normal operations of the company through a constant supply of goods. Within the context of an underlying transport contract the ms RHENUS DUISBURG is ‘tailor made’ to guarantee a

maximum coupled load capacity for which the heights of bridges along the route are taken into account. The ship has been deve- loped in close consultation with the customer and with the support of the Development Centre for Ship Technology and Transport Systems (DST). It has a length of 110.00 x 11.45 me- tres and has a maximum draught of 3.20 metres. Herbert Berger explains that the ms RHENUS DUISBURG sails with three barges from ports within the ARA region to Wesel. This requires a large motor capacity. Rhenus has opted for two Caterpillar main engines of the 3512C type, each with a capacity of 1118kW. Each engine drives a screw with a diameter of 2000 mm. To optimize the water supply to these large screws it was decided to apply the Van der Velden ‘flex tunnel’. These can be extended at low water so that they can continue to provide the screws with an undiminished flow of water. The ms RHENUS DUISBURG is the first ship on which ‘flex tunnel’ tech- nology has been applied. For the route from Wesel to Luenen two barges are coupled to a waiting canal pusher. On the canal the ms RHENUS DUISBURG sails with one barge for which the propulsion occurs through two C18 type Caterpillars, which are both good for 368kW. The re- turn journey with three barges from Wesel again takes place only using the capacity of the two C18 engines The hull for the 110.00 metres long ms RHENUS DUISBURG was delivered by Rensen-Driessen. It has been built at the S.C. San- tierul Naval Orsova S.A. shipyard in Romania. Up till now Rensen- Driessen has had almost fifty hulls built there, the quality of which have been amply proven in the market. Dolderman in Dordrecht is going to finish the ship and deliver it turnkey to Rhenus Logis- tics. During the building of the ship the relationship between Rhenus Logistics and Rensen-Driesen Shipbuilding was continued even further with a second order: another double walled slob tanker will be built for use on the Danube.