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www.sname.org/sname/mt January 2013 Arctic icebreaker Varandey , which operates in the Barents Sea, uses 8.4 MW azimuth propulsors as main propulsion. propulsor, have inferior fuel e ciency and are not able to function as e ectively in ice management. Other pos- sible vessel types would be dedicated ice management vessels or arctic platform supply vessels that need to be able to operate at high speeds in open water but still be able to break through certain ice thicknesses if necessary. With the ECO CRP, Steerprop Ltd. aims to bring e ciency ? in both ecological and economical terms to larger vessels,? Jukola adds. We envision propul- sors e ciency to be of particular use in ships that have to operate in both ice and open water and still have to maintain a high level of fuel e ciency.? Plausible option But not all of the product development that we conducted has been into ice-going vessels and applications. As a part of the program, research also was conducted into how this new evolution of large and powerful CRP technol- ogy could be used in applications that require improved fuel e ciency even when operating at cruise speeds of 25 knots or more. e ECO CRP propulsors are available in up to, and over, 20 MW in power and o er signi cant improvements in both fuel e ciency and reliability, in more compact form, in comparison to currently avail- able azimuth propulsors in the same power ratings. ese propulsors are a plausible option for future applications requiring high power at high speeds, such as large cruise vessels or oil or lique ed natural gas tankers. But even the best propulsion system must be prop- erly optimized to the vessels operational pro le and seamlessly interfaced with the rest of the ships systems, or it cannot achieve its full potential in either e ciency or maneuverability. ese are important requirements in a world where the price of fuel continues to increase and vessel o -duty time is becoming more costly. Our control system, which is always used to control our propulsors, is based on widely-available automotive technology equipped with in-house programming, and can be interfaced with any known control system avail- able on the market today. e system is also developed as the propulsors themselves develop, to ensure that the control system will be interfaceable with any new con- trol, monitoring, or communications system. We recently signed a contract with Brunvoll AS, a Norwegian provider of tunnel thrusters. With Brunvoll AS, our goal is to be able to deliver both main propulsion and tunnel thrusters in the same package to clients, with the engineers of both companies working in unison to ensure that the main propulsion and the forward tunnel thrust- ers will be able to work in cooperation with each other. Ongoing research and development at Steerprop Ltd. and other companies is enabling azimuth propulsion to continue developing in size and e ciency. For us the ECO CRP is not the end-all solution,? says Hannu Jukola. We will continue developing our propulsors so no mat- ter the challenge or geographical location of our client, we will be able to deliver a reliable, e cient solution to their challenge.? MTMarkus Niemi is a Michigan-based freelance writer and visual artist who worked in the maritime propulsion industry for several years with Steerprop Ltd.