U.S. Coastal RoPax – Not Here Yet, But Getting Close

By Geoff Uttmark

Maritime technological advancement is normally evolutionary. Ships grow larger, engine power-to-weight ratios increase, fuel rates decrease, navigation bridges and engine spaces automate, crew sizes shrink, all in an unending progression of productivity improvement. The pace of innovation is slow most of the time, but not all of the time. Recent notable instances of shipping metamorphosis include the container ship revolution, which sent brand new break bulk freighters back to the building yard for conversion, and development of VLCCs in response to closure of the Suez Canal in 1967 that displaced most 100,000 DWT “supertankers” from the Persian Gulf to less important oil trades.

Most recently of all, the ferry sector, which encompasses a very broad range of technologies from intra-harbor commuter foot ferries to some coastal and inter-island Ro/Ro ships, has witnessed more technological advancement in the past decade than the prior century. Cruise ferry and RoPax developments are both the most interesting and the most challenging to forecast in this sector since they are by definition hybrid services accommodating three constituencies:

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