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Now in the 35th year, HANSA again has awarded a German shipyard for an outstanding shipbuilding project. For 2019, the traditional award goes to the Fassmer Group

The company with headquarters in Berne at the river Weser and several national and international subsidiaries is honoured for the[ds_preview] »Atair«, a federal research vessel built for Germany. As the worlds first public authority vessel, the 75m long »Atair« is powered by a low-emission natural gas propulsion system and fitted with an LNG tank capacity of 130 m3.

Contracted at 113,8mill. €, it replaces the 1987-built »Atair«. Now, the newbuild is the largest ship in the fleet of the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency BSH (»Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie«). The ship has the capacity to accommodate a crew of 18 plus 15 scientists.

The »central floating research platform«, like some observers call it, was developed as an economical and, above all, environmentally friendly ship design – on the basis of a 3D-numerical ship model. One of the challenges was to ensure the design meets all environmental and safety requirements and satisfies the professional demands of scientists on board.

With this award, Fassmer follows the shipbuilding group Meyer Werft, which was honoured last year for building the »AIDAnova«. Of note, that was another project with LNG technology on board – a segment to which several German shipyards are paying a lot of attention. It was also the Meyer Group, which was the last shipyard to receive an award from HANSA for the construction of a research vessel. In 2015, the »Sonne« won the prestigious award.