Wärtsilä, the marine industry’s leading solutions provider, has been awarded the contract to supply the propulsion equipment for a new, state-of-the-art, research vessel. The vessel will be operated by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), and is to be built at the C.N.P. Freire S.A. shipyard in Spain. The NERC is the UK’s main agency for funding and managing world-class research, training and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences.

The contract calls for Wärtsilä to supply four of its 8-cylinder in-line Wärtsilä 20 main diesel electric generating sets, two main propulsion steerable thrusters, one bow retractable thrusters, and a complete Low Loss Concept diesel electric system. The majority of the Wärtsilä equipment will be delivered by the end of 2011, and the ship is scheduled to be launched before the end of 2012.