Faster docking for autonomous ships

ASKO Maritime, the shipping arm of Norway’s largest grocery chain, will be among the first to benefit from Cavotec’s new MoorMaster NxG in its Oslo Fjord operations where the fully electric ships will sail autonomously from port to port replacing two million kilometres of truck transport, saving 5,000 tonnes of CO2 every year.

“The MoorMaster system will save us huge amounts of energy and is a key enabler of autonomous operations,” said Kai Just Olsen, CEO, ASKO Maritime CEO.

“Since we won’t need to use the powerful bow and side thrusters in port, our electric vessels will use less energy and also extend the battery lifetime.”

Next generation

Mr Norin said that its next generation automated vacuum mooring solution, MoorMaster NxG, will give the process of anchoring ships to port using ropes and chains a radical overhaul, shaving up to an hour off mooring.

Shorter turn-around times mean more time cruising at lower speeds for lower fuel consumption and a greener, cleaner world. Fast, hands-free mooring enables ports to increase productivity while also reducing emissions and keeping employees safe.

Even with conventional vessels, MoorMaster has been shown to reduce the level of harmful emissions by as much as 98 per cent during mooring leading to a healthier environment for port employees and nearby communities.

MoorMaster NxG comes with patented Active Control technology and uses a proprietary software algorithm to eliminate vessel motion while also drastically increasing system lifetime.

For ports, this leads to increased loading/offloading productivity and enables future use cases such as fully automated ship-to-shore cranes.