Being green is not always plain sailing

With the sole purpose of developing and constructing an Amsterdam canal trip boat powered by hydrogen, a consortium of five businesses formed Fuel Cell Boat BV back in 2006. The five members were: Alewijnse Marine Systems in Nijmegen, Linde Gas Benelux in Schiedam, Amsterdam-based canal boat company Lovers, Marine Service Noord in Hoogezand and Weesp-based Integral.

From the very start, the government played a large part in the project’s development because rules dictate any new canal trip boat in Amsterdam has to produce zero emissions, which helped their cause. The Ministry of Economic Affairs also supplied one million euros worth of funding for the three million euro project, with the consortium partners supplying the remainder.

However, authorities also ensured that Alexander Overdiep’s role as project manager for Fuel Cell Boat was not a smooth ride. As the project represents the first time a new ship has been created solely for using hydrogen, there was no template to work from.

Snug as a bug on a boat
One of the first problems he encountered was that in Amsterdam, because of the low bridges, the passengers sit in the hull, and there is no bottom deck. As a result the design had to include both the fuel cell installation and passengers in the hull. On hydrogen-fuelled buses, the gas installations are on top of the vehicle or on the deck side, so passengers will sometimes only be a yard away from them. Yet in shipping there has to a minimum distance of three metres. This made the layout difficult because a local regulation dictated that canal-type boats can be a maximum of twenty metres long. Alexander’s boat measures in at 21 metres and 95 cm. Luckily, he says, the local rules have since changed.

“They’ll allow us to operate the vessel, but it took six months of discussions, tests and second opinions for this to happen,” Alexander says.

For the boat to be an effective commercial operation, it was calculated that it needed to accommodate at least eighty passengers. This was a tough challenge given the strict limitations on length, regulations regarding the size of compartments and rules regarding passenger proximity to gas installations, which left only twelve metres for the passenger compartment. However, by pushing their creative engineering skills to the max, the team still managed to accommodate 87 passengers in the boat. No match for the 120 passengers that some canal boats carry, but enough to make it commercially viable.

Filling station
The boat will not just operate as a tourist vessel; it will transport the employees of Shell Amsterdam from the central station to its premises.

Shell has also agreed to allow the filling station to be located on its quayside premises, after much deliberation, discussion and delays, Alexander says. A fortnight ago Shell finally decided to cooperate, after six months of saying they would not, but there is a long way to go yet, he adds.

“The filling station still has to be built and that needs special licences from the Amsterdam Municipal Environment Office. For that we need detailed sketches, a quantitative risk analysis and things like that. That’s not a thing you can arrange within a few days,” he explains.

Talk talk
So far Alexander has had to consult with the Amsterdam Fire Department, Water Service Amsterdam, Germanischer Lloyd, Port of Amsterdam, the Cape Shipyard, the Transport and Water Management Inspectorate and Shell Amsterdam on the project – and the ship is yet to embark on its maiden voyage. A technical launch is planned within the next month, with a commercial launch pencilled in for the end of October.

Fortunately, Alexander is a man who likes a good chat – and it looks like there will be plenty more to come.