The ship is contracted by Color Line at Ulstein Verft and the hull will be towed to Ulsteinvik, Norway in October. The ship will be delivered to Color Line in May 2019.
The start of assembly is an important milestone in the construction of a ship and the milestone was celebrated with the traditional lucky coin ceremony. In her speech at the ceremony, Ulstein Group CEO, Gunvor Ulstein, commented:
"Ulstein puts a lot of emphasis into developing greener, smarter and safer solutions. We are very happy for the good cooperation with Color Line and that we have reached this important milestone together. We are looking forward to the hull arrives at Ulstein Verft in October."
The CEO of Color Line, Trond Kleivdal, emphasised the environment and sustainable development in his speech:
"The hybrid technology and other environmental friendly solutions on board the Color Hybrid will reduce noise and emissions of environmentally harmful gasses to a minimum."
The natural environment is an accelerator for Color Line, the company has installed shore power facilities in all their Norwegian ports; Oslo, Kristiansand, Larvik and Sandefjord. The facilities in Sandefjord will be used to charge the batteries of the Color Hybrid.
The M/S Color Hybrid will be built for the Norwegian Ordinary Ship register (NOR), and will have Norwegian crew. "Predictability and an international competitive framework have been of the utmost importance when deciding to build the world's largest plug-in ship, and the framework also makes it possible for us to look at further investments from a Norwegian standpoint, with future new and innovative maritime environmental solutions," says Trond Kleivdal.
The world's largest plug-in hybrid ship will be 160 metres in length and have a capacity of 2,000 passengers and about 500 cars. The ship presents an increased capacity on the line between Norway and Sweden. The facilities on board will be top modern and efficient and it is expected that the ship will give the passengers a whole new travel experience.
Color Line is currently the only shipping line in international passenger and goods traffic with scheduled services to and from Norway, with ships on the Norwegian shipping register, under Norwegian ownership and with its head office in Norway.
Update June 2018:
Building the world's largest plug-in hybrid ship. Time lapse from the Crist yard showing the assembly of grand block 2-5.
