Kongsberg Maritime, the Norway-based technology, equipment and services company that has offices in Washington state and British Columbia, is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its ship design business this year.
Kongsberg’s original design teams produced their first-ever models in 1974, and since then, the company has risen as a name in the vessel design industry.
At the dawn of the offshore oil and gas industry in the 1970s, some of the very first vessels made specifically for the harsh operating conditions of the North Sea were designed by Kongsberg.
The company’s UT design range became a benchmark for the industry and has remained at the forefront of the offshore industry ever since, Kongsberg and its clients have said. The UT range also has developed to include other ship types, including oceanographic research, coastal protection and most recently, vessels designed specifically for operation at offshore wind farms.
The design gets its name from Ulstein Trading, a once-small Norwegian mechanical workshop that became a trailblazer in vessel design, shipbuilding and maritime solutions.
The UT Design
Fifty years ago, in the early days of North Sea offshore oil and gas production, the choice of offshore vessel was limited, with the only options being simple service vessels used in the relatively shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico. They were soon found to be lacking in capability, particularly enough freeboard and seakeeping.
The solution to these early challenges came from a small shipyard group on Norway’s west coast. Ulstein Trading formally set up in 1967 as the sales and ship design company within the Ulstein Group and set about designing what would become a vessel of choice for the offshore industry.
They looked at specific requirements for the emerging oil and gas operations and importantly, consulted with Norwegian fishing fleet owners who had vast experience working in the North Sea, and the result was the UT design. Kongsberg’s UT 704 platform supply vessel entered service in 1974.
More than 800 UT vessels have been built, while the majority are for offshore operations, the design has evolved for other duties including for Coast Guards, research and construction.
The NVC Design
Additionally, over five decades within markets covering cargo, passenger and fishing fleets, Kongsberg has delivered about 200 ships from its NVC family, which over the years, has covered a wide range of vessels, including cargo ships, high-speed ferries, explorer cruise ships and vessels for the fisheries and aquaculture sectors.
“Over the past 50 years, our design teams have created an extensive portfolio of innovative ships for all market(s),” said Kongsberg Maritime President Lisa Edvardsen Haugan, who also mentioned that the company was delivering its 1,000th ship design in 2024.
“In the same way as the very first UT 704 platform supply vessel ventured out into the North Sea back in 1974 as a pioneer of its time, our latest state-of-the art windfarm service operation vessels for (Norway-based renewable energy company) Integrated Wind Solutions will again be pioneering operations in the energy markets offshore,” she said.
“From setting the benchmark that set the standard for offshore supply vessels in the 1970s, to advanced anchor handlers that transformed the oil and gas industry, and a growing reference list in fishery and merchant ships, Kongsberg Maritime’s range of ship designs has continued to evolve over the past five decades,” the company said in a statement marking the anniversary.
The origins of the NVC merchant ship portfolio began with a Norwegian company called Nordvestconsult (NVC), a design house initially working on fishing vessels and a variety of dry cargo vessels.
In the late 1990s, the company was acquired by the Ulstein Group, which by that time had an established reputation designing and building vessels for the offshore market.
The coming together of the two companies offered a broader range of ship design expertise to the market. The ship technology part of Ulstein Group was later sold to the British company Vickers, then to Rolls-Royce in 1999. In 2019, it became part of Kongsberg Maritime.
Key Pillars
Kongsberg Maritime has said that its ship design philosophy is centered around three key pillars: safety, operational efficiency and sustainability.
Many ships designed by the company operate in some of the harshest conditions on the planet, so according to the company, there’s a focus on safety in all designs. Kongsberg added that another crucial element, with a growing demand for vessels that can last for decades, is operational efficiency.
“The most significant driver impacting how we design ships today is sustainability,” Edvardsen Haugan added. “It’s not only regulators that are demanding ships have lower emissions; owners, faced with higher fuel costs, want vessels that use less energy, so there is a shift towards more electrification and battery-hybrid solutions.”
“The use of alternative fuels is also very relevant for how ships are designed, such as methanol and ammonia-fueled ships,” she said.
Kongsberg Maritime’s ship design team is supported by Kongsberg-owned Croatian company Navis Consult, which provides a range of engineering services in support of the company’s products.
“We are a technology company that delivers a wealth of innovative solutions and technologies, which we incorporate into our ship designs,” Edvardsen Haugan said. “That combined knowledge across the company, together (with) deep and lasting relationships with ship owners … gives us a unique capability to offer modern solutions in an efficient way.”
Solutions that the company hopes keep pushing its ship design business forward for another 50 years and beyond.