Majestic fast ferry boosts its fleet with mtu series 2000 engines to capture growing markets
Posted on April 13, 2023
As one of the youngest leading ferry operators coming out of Singapore in a highly competitive ferry transportation industry, Majestic Fast Ferry is utilizing mtu-powered vessels to implement its business strategy, capture growing markets, and reinvent the transit ferry experience.
Who
Majestic Fast Ferry
What
mtu Series 2000 M72 engines
Why
Reliability, fuel efficiency, and complete lifecycle support
Where
Singapore-Batam
Batam has become one of the leading travel destinations for Singapore residents and the city-state-based Majestic Fast Ferry continues to see organic growth in terms of passenger loads. Ferrying up to 200,000 customers monthly and making over 70 trips daily between Singapore and Batam, the company’s newly introduced high-speed catamaran service makes it possible to serve the route more efficiently in comparison to using slower, traditional monohulled vessels.
Majestic Fast Ferry puts its trust in Rolls-Royce’s mtu engines to power these new vessels – due to the engines’ performance, power and unparalleled reliability.
“With an mtu-powered vessel, it’s possible to carry double the amount of passengers. And on top of that the mtu powered vessels are using the same amount of fuel as before but achieving a much faster speed.”
The mtu difference
The catamarans are fitted with four mtu 12V 2000 M72 engines which produce 1,080 kilowatts power output each. The vessels are also equipped with four waterjets, giving them a maximum speed of 38 knots. This has had a significant impact on the vessels’ performance by allowing them to achieve greater speeds, while using the same amount of fuel as before to make more trips a day, and cover longer distances in a shorter time.
As a result, Majestic Fast Ferry is able to put a special emphasis on carrying more passengers at faster speeds, all while delivering the best-in-class experience for its business class passengers.
Moreover, the fuel efficiency of the mtu engines and their long maintenance intervals made Rolls-Royce’s brand mtu Majestic Fast Ferry’s foremost choice.
A trusted ally
“Another reason we chose to stick with mtu engines from Rolls-Royce is because of the company’s pre- and after-sales programme,” said Max Tan, Managing Director, Majestic Fast Ferry. He added that Rolls-Royce focuses on providing preventative maintenance and reducing downtime. This directly translates into the vessels spending more time cruising and less time in the shipyard for maintenance.
“Rolls-Royce provides world-class power solutions and complete lifecycle support under the product and solution brand mtu,” said Chew Xiang Yu, Director, Marine APAC at Rolls-Royce business unit Power Systems. He further explained that in addition to offering a technologically suitable engine for the application and the operation, Rolls-Royce also works with the designers and the owners themselves to improve the operating point of the engines, making it possible to optimize the fuel consumption of the engines while simultaneously lowering the operational cost of the vessels.
This familiarization helps prioritize the requirements and understand the unique ferry design. One example is the prevalent concern of reducing vibrations and noise in the passenger lounge of similar vessels. Rolls-Royce’s tailored solutions help achieve this intricate balance of powering the ferries with quiet yet powerful engines by installing them on rubber mounts specially designed for mtu engines, thereby producing exceptionally low noise levels.
Such tailor-made solutions coupled with exceptional service have strengthened the partnership between Rolls-Royce and Majestic Fast Ferry since 2016.
Monitoring for success
Rolls-Royce also makes use of cutting-edge techn ology to closelymonitor systems to make necessary adjustments for optimization. According to Chew, “leveraging on digitalization will allow us to[enable operators to] extract further value from the vessels itself” –further highlighting features like ‘system engine monitoring’ thatanticipates incidents, undertakes predictive maintenance at theoptimum time and ensures that the engine systems endure as littledowntime as possible.
An eye to the future
“What we envision is to be the market leader and to revolutionize howthe ferry industry should be,” said Tan. Having ordered more than 56 mtu engines for their vessels to boost their fleet and expecting thenumbers to grow, Majestic Fast Ferry is out to set the gold standard.
“Apart from just being an engine supplier, we want to co create the new generation ferry delivering comfort, more green technology fuel savings for the marine ecosystem.”