Indian Shipyard Builds Country's First Fully Automated Tankship

Modest Infrastructure Company's Bhavnagar shipyard has built a cutting-edge tankship for an Italian client.

According to Mehul Patel, director (project and operations), the new 3,300 dwt ship, built in a span of 20 months, can be operated with just three crew members. Conventionally, a ship of this size would require 18 to 20 crew members, he said.

"The specialty of this ship is that all machinery, equipments, instruments are operated by remote control. Moreover, approximately 65 km of cable has been laid in the ship to facilitate all machinery and automation in the 75 meter long ship,'' Patel told TOI.

"In the ship, 400 plus motorized valves have been installed to operate various piping systems from the bridge. The ship can be operated via local area network (LAN) at the harbors,'' Patel added.