VESSEL REVIEW | Lam Elec I – Electric mooring boat for operation in France's Loire Estuary
French shipbuilder OCEA has completed construction of the battery-electric mooring boat Lam Elec I for Lamanage Huchet-Desmars (LHD), which plans to use it on the Loire estuary.
LHD announced the launch and described the vessel as the first electric launch dedicated to mooring operations. The boat is intended to assist ships at the terminals of the Grand Port Maritime of Nantes Saint-Nazaire, where LHD crews handle mooring work for cargo ships and tankers.
After the launch, LHD said Lam Elec I will undergo several weeks of basin and estuary trials before delivery. The company said it had been certified by Bureau Veritas.
The boat is an OCEA model designated an electric mooring boat (EMB). Her aluminium hull measures 8.1 metres (27 feet) long with a beam of 3.15 metres (10.3 feet). She can embark two crew and three passengers and she has a reported maximum speed of 12 knots.
Hull optimisation to permit installation of minimum allowable batteries
Vebrat supplied the electric propulsion system and onboard energy integration. The vessel carries 12 lithium iron phosphate batteries. OCEA designed and built the boat to meet LHD's operating requirements, including work with large vessels in the estuary's strong currents.
The hull was shaped to limit the battery capacity needed for those assignments. Pierre-Laurent Vincent, OCEA's Maritime Development Director, said that optimising the hull made it possible to reduce the number of batteries by 30 per cent.
OCEA designed Lam Elec I for extended mooring operations, including assistance to large oil tankers during a tide. Vincent said the boat could operate for up to three hours, or two hours at maximum speed. OCEA also said it was intended to make the transit between Donges and Nantes in less than three hours.
The route reflects where LHD's existing launches are based. In an interview with Le Figaro, Vincent said the mooring boats serving Nantes and Saint-Nazaire operate from Donges and must contend with the estuary's tides and strong currents. Hull weight and energy use were therefore considered during the design phase from the start.
Built for repeated daily use
Rapid charging is another part of the operating plan. OCEA said a 400kW charger would restore 80 per cent of the batteries' capacity in less than an hour, allowing the boat to return to mooring work after a transit or assignment.
The planned shore connection is at Chaland Amont on the Loire. The port was to provide a transformer stepping power down from 20 kV to 400 V, along with the electrical infrastructure needed for the charger. LHD was to install the 400kW charging equipment at the site. The arrangement makes shore facilities part of the boat's operating schedule.
Virginie Ringeard, LHD’s Legal and Insurance Manager, said that having a flat battery when there is an operation to carry out in the port was not an option. Mooring crews must be able to respond when ships are ready to berth or depart, so LHD specified a recharge interval that would allow the launch to be available for another assignment.
Daily workboat that also serves as a proof-of-concept demonstrator
Work on the aluminium boat was underway at OCEA's Saint-Nazaire site by October 2025, when Baird Maritime reported on its construction.
Vincent said that OCEA normally built and outfitted its vessels at Les Sables-d'Olonne and Fontenay-le-Comte. Saint-Nazaire put this project closer to LHD and Vebrat.
The prototype was also intended to show operators at other ports that an electric boat could undertake mooring work. OCEA has said that putting the EMB into series production could help it offer shorter delivery times and competitive prices to operators replacing mooring launches.
LHD had about 140 mooring launches operating in France when work on Lam Elec I began in 2025, and these vessels generally used conventional engines or hybrid propulsion.
