Damen Shipyards Galati in Romania has delivered two new fully-electric Ro-Pax ferries ordered by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario, Canada.
The 68-metre Amherst Islander II and the 98-metre Wolfe Islander IV are currently being transported to Canada on board a semi-submersible heavy transport vessel. They are scheduled to arrive in Lake Ontario in the middle of September 2021.
Damen said the newbuilds will be the first fully-electric road ferries to operate in North America. Both of the open-deck vessels are equipped to be fully-electric, but also have twin diesel generators installed to allow hybrid and full diesel propulsion for maximum redundancy.
Due to the harsh winters in their area of operations, the ferries also feature Ice class 1B hulls and Ice class 1A azimuth thrusters, allowing them to be fully operational even as outside air temperatures drop to -25 degrees Celsius.