Princess Cruises Specifies Enviro Engines

An agreement was recently reached between Princess Cruises, the engine builder Wärtsilä and the shipyard Fincantieri that Newbuilding 6100 at the said shipyard will be equipped with Wärtsilä Common Rail engines. The engine configuration is four 12-cylinder engines and two 8-cylinder engines, all of the Wärtsilä 46 type in diesel-electric configuration, giving the ship the total installed power of 67.2 MW. The Hull 6100 is a modified version of earlier ships at the same shipyard, i.e. the "Carribean Princess" class. The passenger capacity is 3100. The first newbuilding with common rail engines, the "Coral Princess", has now been in operation for one and a half year, and the engines have passed 10,000 h of operation. The sister ship, "Island Princess", has more than 5,000 h of operation. The "Diamond Princess" built at Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard is right now entering service, and the sister ship later this spring. Cunard's "Queen Mary 2" is also equipped with Wärtsilä 46 Common Rail engines. In addition to the Wärtsilä 46, also the Wärtsilä 38 and the Wärtsilä 32 are available with common rail injection.

Charles Arkinstall, Executive Vice President, Princess Cruises, says: "Our first decision to go for common rail engines was based on the company policy to go for environmentally friendly solutions whenever possible. We are pleased with the way the engine builder has supported the products, we are happy we have been able to support the engine industry in the introduction of this important technology in terms of environmental friendliness."

Since the first common rail engines were delivered the technology has been developed for still lower smoke values on the Filter Smoke Number scale, FSN. The new engines will have a FSN of