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 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. OCEA designed and built the boat to meet LHD's operating requirements, including work with large vessels in strong currents within the Loire.
The boat is a Bureau Veritas-classed 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 maximum speed of 12 knots.
Hull optimisation to permit installation of minimum allowable batteries
The vessel carries 12 lithium iron phosphate batteries supplied by Vebrat, which was also responsible for the onboard energy integration.
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. 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 outset.
Built for repeated daily use
OCEA said a 400kW charger can 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. Charging will be done using a shore connection at Chaland Amont on the Loire.
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 immediately available for another assignment upon completion of an earlier one.
Daily workboat that also serves as a proof-of-concept demonstrator
The prototype was also intended to show operators at other ports that an electric boat could undertake mooring work. 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.
