Dutch sea research institute christens new coastal vessel

The Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (Nederlands Instituut voor Zeeonderzoek; NIOZ) formally named a new coastal research vessel in a ceremony on Thursday, February 15.

The vessel has been named Wim Wolff after a Dutch ecologist who specialised in mudflat research. Aarnoud van de Burgt, the head of NIOZ’s National Marine Facilities Department, said the vessel is capable of both running dry on mudflats and sailing up to 20 nautical miles offshore.

The propulsion system includes batteries and engines that can run on hydrotreated vegetable oil. The engines may be modified in future to operate on either hydrogen or methanol.

Wim Wolff was built by Thecla Bodewes Shipyards to a design by Dutch naval architecture firm Conoship International. The vessel will be operated primarily in the North Sea, the Wadden Sea, and the Southwest Delta region into which the Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt rivers flow.