MS ''Megastar'' is a fast ro-ro/passenger (ro-pax) ferry built by the

Meyer Turku Meyer Turku Oy is a Finnish shipbuilding company located in Turku, Finland Proper. The main products are cruise ships and cruiseferries. The shipbuilding facility is Perno shipyard in Turku. The yard area is 144 hectares and it is equipped wi ...

shipyard in

Turku Turku ( ; ; , ) is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Southwest Finland. It is located on the southwestern coast of the country at the mouth of the Aura River (Finland), River Aura. The population of Turku is approximately , while t ...

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, for the

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

n shipping company

Tallink Tallink () is an Estonian shipping company operating Baltic Sea cruiseferries and ropax ships from Estonia to Finland, Estonia to Sweden and Finland to Sweden. It is the largest passenger and cargo shipping company in the Baltic Sea region. It ...

. The 230 million euro vessel is the first ship in Tallink's fleet to use

liquefied natural gas Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volume o ...

(LNG) as fuel.

Construction

The construction of Tallink's new car ferry began 4 August 2015 and the keel was laid on 9 February 2016. On 1 July 2016, the ship was given the name ''Megastar'', chosen from 21,550 naming proposals following a public naming contest, by Finnish President

Tarja Halonen Tarja Kaarina Halonen (, born 24 December 1943) is a Finns, Finnish politician who served as the 11th president of Finland, and the first and to date only woman to hold the position, from 2000 to 2012. She first rose to prominence as a lawyer wit ...

. The vessel was floated out on 15 July and the sea trials were scheduled for late 2016. The ship was delivered on 24 January 2017.

Technical details

''Megastar'' is powered by three 12-cylinder

Wärtsilä Wärtsilä Oyj Abp (), trading internationally as Wärtsilä Corporation, is a Finnish corporation, Finnish company which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the Marine propulsion, marine and energy markets. The core ...

12V50DF and two 6-cylinder Wärtsilä 6L50DF four-stroke

dual-fuel A flexible-fuel vehicle (FFV) or dual-fuel vehicle (colloquially called a flex-fuel vehicle) is an alternative fuel vehicle with an internal combustion engine designed to run on more than one fuel, usually gasoline blended with either ethanol o ...

generating sets. While capable of running on

marine diesel oil Marine diesel oil (MDO) is a type of distillate diesel oil. Marine diesel oil is also called ''distillate marine diesel''. MDO is widely used by medium speed and medium/high speed marine diesel engines. It is also used in the larger low speed and m ...

(MDO), the engines will primarily use

(LNG) as fuel. This reduces both sulphur oxide (SOx) and

nitrogen oxide Nitrogen oxide may refer to a binary compound of oxygen and nitrogen, or a mixture of such compounds: Charge-neutral *Nitric oxide (NO), nitrogen(II) oxide, or nitrogen monoxide * Nitrogen dioxide (), nitrogen(IV) oxide * Nitrogen trioxide (), o ...

(NOx) emissions, and allows the vessel to comply with IMO Tier III emission limits as well as the additional restrictions of the Baltic Sea Sulphur Emission Control Area. The gas fuel is stored in two cryogenic storage tanks which, unlike in the previous LNG-fueled cruiseferry ''Viking Grace'', are located inside the hull of the vessel, below the main deck. The propulsion system is diesel-electric, meaning that instead of being mechanically coupled to the twin propeller shafts, the main engines form a power plant which produces electricity for all electrical consumers ranging from propulsion motors to auxiliary systems and hotel functions. This allows starting and stopping engines depending on power demand and improves the

fuel efficiency Fuel efficiency (or fuel economy) is a form of thermal efficiency, meaning the ratio of effort to result of a process that converts chemical energy, chemical potential energy contained in a carrier (fuel) into kinetic energy or Mechanical work, w ...

as the engines can run at their nominal power.Megastar-laivasta: Moottorit
Tallink. The service speed of the vessel is .

Service history

After its completion and handover to Tallink the vessel began providing from late January 2017 a six times a day Tallinn-Helsinki-Tallinn service.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Megastar 2016 ships Ships built in Turku Ferries of Estonia