AWARDS 2025 | Best Large Ferry – Xin Ming Zhu 39 – Guangdong Sinoway Composite Materials
This state-of-the-art, LFP battery-powered harbour ferry recently built by Guangdong Sinoway Composite Materials in China stands out for its innovative, eco-friendly design tailored for Victoria Harbour and Greater Bay Area routes in Hong Kong.
Constructed entirely from corrosion-resistant carbon-fibre composite, the lightweight hull enhances efficiency, reduces maintenance, lowers noise, and ensures durability in harsh marine environments.
"Xin Ming Zhu 39 is not only the first all-electric twin stern drive, carbon fibre catamaran ferry built by our company, it also incorporates a host of innovative elements," Shengkai Huang, General Manager at Sinoway, told Baird Maritime.
"First, the vessel adopts a full carbon fibre sandwich structure and is constructed using vacuum infusion technology, which significantly reduces the weight and improves operational efficiency. It has a range of 170 kilometres, meeting the demand for continuous operation from 07:00 to 20:00, and can be fully charged within six hours at night."
Huang remarked that by using Chinese-manufactured carbon fibre and resin, the construction cost has been greatly reduced, and the vessel’s price is in line with market expectations.
"The vessel also features a symmetrical layout with twin stern drives, and its 360° full-rotation thrusters are arranged diagonally, which greatly enhances manoeuvrability. When operating in the busy Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong, the safety and convenience of collision avoidance, turning and berthing have been significantly improved, and the shipowner is very satisfied with this."
The vessel is equipped with an advanced intelligent driving assistance system.
By integrating visual sensors, 3D lidar and on-board system data, and relying on core server-side technologies such as AI visual recognition, image stitching and fusion, and point cloud stitching and fusion, it achieves four key functions: intelligent decision support for vessel navigation, improving navigation safety and efficiency; assisting in completing berthing and unberthing operations accurately and safely; significantly improving image clarity under low visibility conditions such as rain, fog and nighttime, ensuring the stable operation of all systems; and realising intelligent monitoring and situational awareness of key areas of the entire vessel.
"The vessel is equipped with a high-safety-level 3,870kWh LFP battery," said Huang. "Each hull is equipped with three battery groups, and each group is divided into four clusters. Each cluster is independently laid out and managed in a modular manner, achieving redundant design and fault isolation of the battery system, and greatly improving power supply stability and safety reliability."
The battery management system detects the state of battery cells and accurately regulates the charging and discharging process to adapt to the needs of the vessel’s full operating conditions.
Lastly, the vessel is equipped with a small-power 30kW generator, which serves as an emergency backup power source. It can start quickly in the event of a sudden failure of the main power supply, providing continuous power for key equipment such as the vessel’s steering, communication and lighting.
It can also ensure the vessel’s navigation safety and emergency response capability, and it fully satisfies the strict requirements of international maritime safety regulations and Hong Kong maritime operations.
"During construction, even though we used new Chinese-manufactured carbon fibre for the first time, the hull structure did not cause us any issues at all," said Huang. "However, the innovative design with twin stern drives and diagonally arranged propellers, together with the need to ensure safe redundancy for piping and control circuits, resulted in additional weight from cables and piping that exceeded our original design estimate.
"Fortunately, we had allowed for a relatively higher weight margin in the interior design during the initial stage, and the hull structure was properly controlled. The extra weight margin thus released helped resolve this problem."
Huang remarked that work on the vessel highlighted the need for giving full consideration to the heat dissipation and humidity control of DC power distribution cabinets. Also, DC charging should be adopted as much as possible to avoid installing AC/DC conversion modules on board, which would require additional heat dissipation measures.
"Every possible effort should be made to reduce weight, improve propulsion efficiency, and properly size the battery capacity installed on board to lower the battery discharge rate," said Huang. "Only in this way can the 10-year service life requirement for the batteries in this project be achieved."
Maximising the service life of vessel batteries, as in the case of Xin Ming Zhu 39, is in line with the need to comply with emission regulations, which Huang identified as a factor presently impacting the global shipbuilding industry.
"Today, the industry is most significantly impacted by the enforcement of green emission regulations and the industrial restructuring driven by zero-carbon and smart technologies," he told Baird Maritime. "Combined, they form the core logic of 'regulations driving technological progress, and technologies reshaping the market', which directly determines new vessel design, order structure, and shipyard competitiveness."
The need to satisfy such regulations led to Sinoway's accelerated rollout of low-emission vessels in 2025, a year during which the company maintained steady development and sound business performance, according to Huang.
"First, our flagship carbon fibre high-speed passenger ferries now reach a maximum scale of 47 meters in length with a capacity of 500 passengers. In 2024, we successfully delivered a hybrid-powered waterjet propelled high-speed ferry capable of 30 knots, perfectly addressing the green development needs of the high-speed ferry sector.
"Meanwhile, we are promoting a 26-knot, all-electric ferry solution to prospective clients. Under construction is an all-electric traffic boat with a speed of 16 knots and a range of 50 nautical miles."
Sinoway is also developing two models of approximately eight-meter all-electric hydrofoil boats featuring active hydrofoil control. Additionally, a 55-foot catamaran carbon fibre yacht with a speed of 20 knots was delivered in 2025.
"As the market fully recognises the advantages of carbon fibre high-speed ferries in fuel efficiency and electric propulsion, coupled with the successful application and promotion of our new products—all aligned with the global trend of green shipping—we are fully confident in the company's future high-quality development."
Huang explained that Sinoway has gradually shifted from single-product manufacturing to a development model featuring a diversified portfolio, serialisation and large-scale production. The company's overall R&D capability and product matrix have achieved significant improvement.
"Looking ahead, we will continue to deepen our presence in the high-end vessel sector, striving to become a world-leading player in the yacht and high-performance passenger ship industry," he told Baird Maritime. "Through technological innovation and quality breakthroughs, we aim to build internationally competitive brands and products."
Sinoway's goal of becoming globally competitive is being undertaken in response to the direction being taken by the worldwide passenger vessel industry, which Huang said will develop around four major directions: green and low-carbon operation, intelligent digitalisation, lightweight high-performance design, and upgraded passenger experience.
"Driven by both technology and policies, passenger ships will transform from traditional means of transport into zero-carbon, intelligent and high-end mobile spaces on water. If battery technologies with high energy density and high safety performance can be widely applied with favourable cost-effectiveness, they will surely bring about more profound changes in the passenger vessel industry."
Huang said the same will be true within the Chinese and Asian workboat industries, as these will gravitate towards decarbonisation, intelligent autonomy, multi-functional integration, and electric propulsion.
"The industry will rely on three major growth engines—offshore wind power, deepwater oil and gas, and port facility upgrading, in order to achieve rapid growth," he told Baird Maritime.
For a list of the 2025 "Best Of" award winners, please click here.
