Touching the sea for the first time

 

On 18 September, Baleària marked a milestone in maritime history with the launch of the first fast ferry in the world powered by natural-gas internal combustion engines.

 

The Eleanor Roosevelt touched the water for the first time at the Armon shipyard in Gijón, where construction began in 2018. Like every launch, it was a unique, unrepeatable moment filled with anticipation. And with good reason: the apparent ease with which a vessel slides into the sea amid the blare of sirens conceals enormous technical complexity. 

 

“A vessel is launched only once in its lifetime: when construction on the slipway has been completed and it is sent into the water to be finished,” explains Guillermo Alomar, Baleària’s Fleet Director. At that stage, the underwater hull has been completed, the shaft line is assembled and the propulsion units are installed, although the interior still has to be fitted out. 

 

 

“The main technical challenge is transferring the vessel’s weight, which is supported on the building slipway by keel blocks, so that it is borne by the buoyancy of the seawater,” says Alomar. As the vessel slides down the slipway bed, this transfer of weight “is gradual and places exceptional loads on the ship’s structure, which must be studied very carefully to prevent damage.”

 

A launch involves a number of potential risks, so another crucial factor is controlling both the speed of the slide and the vessel’s braking as it becomes buoyant. This is achieved using drag devices that slow it down as it moves. In the case of the Eleanor Roosevelt, the operation was carried out during one of the year’s highest tides in Asturias. 

 

 

Launches in the strict sense, which may be sideways or stern-first, are those in which the vessel is floated by moving it down from the building slipway, as in the case of the Eleanor Roosevelt. Six other company vessels have been launched using this system: the fast ferries Federico García Lorca (2001) and Ramon Llull (2003) at the Rodriquez shipyard in Italy, while the ferries Martín i Soler (2008), Bahama Mama (2009, under the name Alhucemas) and Passió per Formentera (2009) touched the sea for the first time at the Barreras shipyard in Vigo. Alomar, who has witnessed several launches, particularly remembers that of the Martín i Soler “which marked a milestone in the renewal of the company’s fleet more than ten years ago”, at a ceremony attended by a delegation of Baleària employees that also served as the vessel’s naming ceremony—two events that are not always held together. 

 

 

There are other methods for floating a vessel for the first time, known as float-outs. These usually involve flooding the dry dock where the vessel was built, as was the case with the innovative smart ships powered by natural gas Hypatia de Alejandría (2018) and Marie Curie (2018), at the Italian Visentini shipyard. For smaller vessels, another option is to lift them into the water by crane, as was done with both the two fast ferries in the Nixe series in Singapore and the four eco fast ferries built at the Gondan shipyard. 

 

Whatever the method, the ceremony that allows a vessel to come into contact with its natural habitat for the first time is a crucial and emotional moment.

 

Timelapse of the launch of the 'fast ferry Eleanor Roosevelt'