Australian Shipbuilder Incat Tasmania Pty Ltd, Incat is poised to revolutionise the world’s ferry market, Incat Chairman Robert Clifford returning from a trip to Europe and the Americas reports very positive engagement with ferry businesses from around the world, saying “Incat Tasmania led the way in the development of the world’s first car-carrying high speed, lightweight catamarans in the 1990s and is set once again to revolutionise the fast ferry market.
Already we build ships that have lower emissions than our steel competitors as aluminium is only a third the weight of steel, meaning vessels require less power and consume the lowest possible amount of fuel already reducing each ships carbon footprint.”
Robert Clifford explains his predictions: “with the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) requiring a 30% reduction in CO2 emissions for new builds from 2025 and a reduction of the world fleet’s overall emissions by 40% from 2030 new opportunities are arising on a scale never before experienced.
“On my recent overseas trip, I met with some of the world’s largest passenger and vehicle ferry companies many of which are current customers and the appetite for fully electric lightweight ferries was staggering.
“Over the next decade there will be tens of thousands of vessels that will need to be replaced or refitted and Incat is ideally placed to deliver the world’s first high-speed lightweight ships that are fully electric with zero emissions.”
Incat is already a world leader in building lighter and stronger ships and now we are going to be the world leader in building lighter, stronger, fully electric, zero emission ferries.
Robert went on to say: “This will mean a doubling if not tripling of our workforce, back up to more than 1500 jobs here at Prince of Wales Bay with a similar increase in contractors and other support services for our operation.
“We will need more employees and possibly even another yard once we reach capacity here at the current site. We are also going to need the right strategic advice and support to enable us to grow as quickly as we will need to. “
