On Saturday, September 17, General Dynamics NASSCO hosted a christening ceremony for the fourth ECO Class tanker for American Petroleum Tankers (APT) under construction at the company’s shipyard in San Diego.
The ECO Class tanker, the Bay State, is the fourth of a five-tanker contract between NASSCO and APT, which calls for the design and construction of five 50,000 deadweight ton, LNG-conversion-ready product carriers with a 330,000 barrel cargo capacity. The 610-foot-long tankers are equipped with a new “ECO” design, which provide a very significant improvement in fuel efficiency. The first three ships of the ECO Class program for APT – the Lone Star State, the Magnolia State, and the Garden State – are delivered and in service. The fifth and final ship under the contract with APT is scheduled to be delivered in 2017.
The construction and operation of the new ECO Class tankers are aligned with the Jones Act, requiring that ships carrying cargo between U.S. ports be built in U.S. shipyards, further protecting hundreds of thousands of American jobs and almost $100 billion in annual economic impact as a result of the domestic American maritime industry.
The Bay State, along with others in the ECO Class, are the first in the Jones Act fleet to obtain a PMA+ Notation, representing compliance with one of the highest standards of human factors in engineering design. The PMA+ notation is created to facilitate safe access to vessel structure and spaces in ways that are rooted in the fundamentals of human ergonomics.
The ships were designed by DSEC, a subsidiary of Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) of Busan, South Korea. The design incorporates improved fuel efficiency concepts through several features, including a G-series MAN ME slow-speed main engine and an optimized hull form.