Norwegian shipping company Hurtigruten has been ferrying people around Norway’s coastline since 1893. It diversified into cruising after passenger planes proved a faster service. Nowadays, its main offerings are cruises into the Antarctic and Arctic frozen wildernesses. As it travels through the seasons exploring secret inlets, the only thing that breaks the sounds of silence is the throbbing of its diesels
Perhaps the Sounds of Silence Could be Louder Some Day
Modern cruise ships use diesel engines to generate electric power for their propellers. They have to, because these are in rotating pods that keep the vessels on their course. Thus, many modern ocean liners are in reality electric vehicles. Although they do have diesel generators on board for the energy they need to move their massive hulls.
The owners of the Hurtigruten shipping company have decided to challenge this assumption. Why do electric cruise ships still need diesel power stations, they wonder. What if we had loads of lithium-ion batteries in the hull as ballast instead? Batteries we could charge with the wind flowing past, the power of the ocean, and the sun overhead.
Imagine if All You Could Hear Were the Ocean Whales
Hurtigruten is commissioning a hybrid diesel ship as a step in the right direction. Its MS Roald Amundsen will set sail from Chile in October 2018, heading for deep Antarctic waters further south in search of the denizens of the deep.
MS Anderson will be without throbbing diesels or a smudge of smoke on the horizon for thirty minutes at a time.
During this extended moment, enthralled watchers will hear the sounds of whales blowing off. And their huge tails slapping water perhaps for the first time in their lives.
Roald Amundsen, born 1872 will be smiling down approvingly. Because he led the first expedition to the South Pole, and knew the Antarctic sounds of silence well. He was a brave man who gave his life in 1928, while attempting to rescue survivors from an airship crashed on frozen Arctic ice.
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Preview Image: DS Vesteraalens: (First Hurtigruten Ship)
