The 118 metre trimaran is a class of high speed trimaran ferries designed and built by Australian shipbuilder Austal for the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Morocc ...

operator

Fred. Olsen Express Fred. Olsen Express is an inter-island ferry service based in the Canary Islands, Spain. It operates a fleet of six modern fast ferries on five routes. Its fleet includes a trimaran fast ferry, the Benchijigua Express, which was the first such ve ...

. Two ships of the design were ordered in 2017 for delivery in 2020 and 2021. The vessels were ordered in November 2017, at a cost of

AU$ The Australian dollar (sign: $; code: AUD) is the currency of Australia, including its external territories: Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and Norfolk Island. It is officially used as currency by three independent Pacific Island s ...

190 million (

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

126million), with construction planned to begin the following year. The lead ship of the class, ''Bajamar Express'', was launched from Austal's

Henderson, Western Australia Henderson is a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, located within the City of Cockburn. History The suburb of Henderson comprises land resumed by the Commonwealth Government in 1915 for defence purposes. A large naval base was planned by Admira ...

shipyard in January 2020, while the following vessel, ''Banaderos Express'', was built at the company's facility in

Balamban Balamban, officially the Municipality of Balamban ( ceb, Lungsod sa Balamban; tgl, Bayan ng Balamban), is a 1st class municipality in the province of Cebu, Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 95,136 people. Mount ...

, Philippines. ''Bajamar Express'' was delivered in mid-2020, and entered service in August, with ''Bañaderos Express'' scheduled to follow in early 2021. Ships of the class are long, with a beam of and a draft of . They have a

deadweight tonnage Deadweight tonnage (also known as deadweight; abbreviated to DWT, D.W.T., d.w.t., or dwt) or tons deadweight (DWT) is a measure of how much weight a ship can carry. It is the sum of the weights of cargo, fuel, fresh water, ballast water, provi ...

of 750

tonne The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United State ...

s, with a capacity of 1,100 passengers and 278 vehicles. Each ship is powered by four MTU M71L diesel engines driving four Kamewa waterjets, giving a service speed of and a range of .

References

{{reflist Ships built by Austal Ferries of Spain