Ireland Sets Sail

State-Of-The-Art Ship Saves Energy

Vulcan Materials Company and its wholly-owned subsidiary shipping company, “Vulica,” held a ceremony at the Blakeley Yard, Port of Mobile, Alabama to name the newest ship in Vulica’s fleet. The M/V Ireland will transport crushed limestone for use in a wide variety of infrastructure construction applications to ports all along the U.S. Gulf Coast from Brownsville, Texas and around the Atlantic coast to Jacksonville, Florida.

The M/V Ireland is named for the founding family of Vulcan Materials Company, who took their private company public in 1957 to serve President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s new interstate highway system. Members of the Ireland family spanning four generations attended the event, and the ship was named and sponsored by Mrs. Mallie Ireland, widow of founding director Glenn Ireland II, and their daughters, Mallie and Noni.

The Ireland is a conveyor type, gravity-fed, self-unloading ship, built in China by Jiangsu Hantong Shipping, and was delivered to Vulica in March 2018.  It is 751 feet long, with a breadth of 105.8 feet and a depth of 66.1 feet. Its load draft, summer, is 42 feet, with a cargo hold capacity of 2,506,543 cubic feet. Gross tonnage capacity, international, is 43,307, with a net tonnage of 15,909 and deadweight tonnage, summer, of 67,158.9. Typical cargo lift, 40-foot draft, is 64,500 short tons.

The Ireland has a crew of 14 officers, 12 seamen, and 4 cadets.

Capt. Girish Lele (L) and Capt Mizanur Rehman (R) Masters of the M/V Ireland

The Finnish design house, Deltamarin, was selected for design work, given in particular the energy-efficient hull design employed by the firm. Due to impending emission control regulations scheduled to be in place in 2020, Vulica selected Belco Wet Scrubbers for the main and auxiliary engines, ensuring that the ship would meet future emissions requirements.

Ireland’s Engineer officers in the engine control room.

The Maritime Reporter and Engineering News selected the Ireland as one of its “Great Ships of 2017”. The Ireland achieved such recognition for a variety of reasons, including:

• The optimization of the hull form for its operations;
• Installation of a completely new propeller design to improve propulsion efficiency, resulting in some 10 percent more cargo capacity than its predecessors and requiring 25 percent less propulsion power;
• The ability to meet emissions regulations both current and future with the use of two scrubbers: one for the main engine and the other for the auxiliary engines that are used to generate electricity in port;
• A permanent magnet shaft generator in the propulsion shaft line, for the cheapest form of electricity generation on board. This along with the use of VFD motors and LED lights also reduces electrical power requirements and thus the amount of fuel consumed;
• Two ballast water treatment systems to prevent transportation of aquatic invasive species through the ballast water;
• Replacement of the typical hydraulic-driven equipment on deck with VF electrical drives, thus eliminating the possibility of oil spills on the main deck;
• A self-unloading system optimized for discharging at 4,500 MT/hour and fitted with the most advanced sensors for monitoring vibration, temperature, heat, and fire, and including the most modern fire extinguishing system. The Ireland and a sister ship are the only self-unloaders with such systems for crew and ship safety in the world.  

The Ireland is the most energy efficient self-unloading ship in the world operating in the construction materials supply market.