FORAN Signs Contract with NODOSA Shipyard

This contract covers installing permanent FORAN system licenses in all design disciplines (Hull Forms and Naval Architecture, Hull Structure, Machinery & Outfitting and Electrical). As part of this agreement, SENER will provide engineering services in addition to technical support and training. The system has been installed successfully in the shipyard's Marin factory, and the corresponding training sessions have been held. NODOSA is now working on its first FORAN project, designing a trawler. It also bears mentioning that the company's specialists connect to the project remotely from their modern cutting center in Bueu, where they can add the ship's metal sheets and profiles using FORAN. This 63.7-m long ship will be used for fishing squid in the Southwest Atlantic fishing ground near the Falkland Islands.

With over four decades working in the sector, the company now focuses on building, repairing, transforming and maintaining various types of vessels: fishing vessels (trawlers, longliners, purse seiners and tuna ships); tugs and salvage and rescue boats; dredgers and port work vessels; auxiliary aquaculture and trapping vessels; passenger vessels (launches, ferries, RoPax ferries, roll-on/roll-off ships, etc.) and recreational boats (yachts, mega-yachts and special sail boats); offshore platforms; oceanographic vessels; specific or general cargo merchant vessels, and submersibles.

“The FORAN system is going to help NODOSA boost its marine business by offering integrated design and production,” noted NODOSA's Sales Director Jose Ramón Regueira after the license transfer and maintenance contract was signed. Meanwhile, the SENER Marine General Manager, Rafael de Góngora, said that “signing the contract with NODOSA is proof of SENER's reliability and its commitment to the future of the shipbuilding industry in Spain, and of its dedication to shipyards and technical offices.”

NODOSA is a Galician shipyard with 40 years of history working in the province of Pontevedra. It has various facilities and production centers, notably including its Marin shipyard, which boasts over 40,000 m2 of land/sea surface area, 6,000 m2 of which are indoor work factories and buildings with six stranding slipways (one of which measures 150 m long and can be converted into a dry dock), and four 150-m outfitting pier. NODOSA also has its own cutting and shaping factories and mechanical workshop, in Bueu and Pontevedra respectively.

SENER's FORAN System, a CAD/CAM/CAE system for designing and building all kinds of ships and units, celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2015. After half a century of continuous reinvention, it is the longest-standing product of its kind on the market. FORAN has been used intensely in Spain since its creation, and its innovation-based development strategy has led it to be installed in 40 countries in some of the world's leading marine programs.