Written by Andrea Trevisan - Bancosta Cruise

CRUISE INNOVATION AND SUSTAINABILITY

AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH MAIKEL ARTS

GENERAL MANAGER TECHNICAL SALES CRUISE, WÄRTSILÄ MARINE

I see that Cruise will keep on leading the way for maritime decarbonization simply because it is so closely connected to people worldwide, both from a consumer perspective as well as from a destination’s perspective. Next to that I see that the Cruise industry is a very flexible industry that adapts to changing circumstances whether from a Geopolitical side or the day-to-day business dynamics. (Maikel Arts)

(Andrea) Tell us a bit about you, your education, where you come from, your career and your current position at Wärtsilä?

(Maikel) I have always been fascinated by how things work, and I remember as you young kid that I always took things apart to see what’s on the inside. I took on mechanical engineering as a study however I have also been trained as a certified tutor. The combination of my technology background and being able to explain this to others has helped me a lot to grow into commercial positions during my career. I have started in the automotive sector and in 2007 I joined Wärtsilä. When I joined Wärtsilä I started as a Sales Support Manager for our service activities and this has shown me how important the lifecycle support is for our customers. A ship that cannot operate due to a system failure is a top priority so this has been a very good learning experience for me. After a couple of years I have moved towards the sales of equipment for New Building projects and here I have over the years more and more focused on the Passenger vessels. My current role as General Manager Technical Sales Cruise I took on some 6 years ago. My responsibility is to make sure that we are offering the right solutions for our customers challenges in the Cruise industry world wide. In this role I work with our global sales network and spend a lot of my time on Decarbonization related matters. For example how the next generation of cruise vessels could be designed or how existing cruise vessels can be optimized so that they have reduced emissions or become fuel flexible. My background of technology, commerce and being able to explain complex issues to our partners comes in very handy here.

(Andrea) Who are your clients?

(Maikel) My clients are all our partners of the global Cruise community. This means basically all Cruise lines worldwide, but also shipyards who built the vessels and ship design companies. Next to that I am working with CLIA and f.e. Seatrade to make sure that we contribute to what we call thought leadership. The whole maritime industry is going through a major transition, and it is important that we collaborate with partners and this thought leadership is an important element of that.

(Andrea) Who are your clients?

(Maikel) My clients are all our partners of the global Cruise community. This means basically all Cruise lines worldwide, but also shipyards who built the vessels and ship design companies. Next to that I am working with CLIA and f.e. Seatrade to make sure that we contribute to what we call thought leadership. The whole maritime industry is going through a major transition, and it is important that we collaborate with partners and this thought leadership is an important element of that.

(Andrea) What is the greatest challenge you see in the cruise industry in terms of sustainability?

(Maikel) As I just mentioned the energy transition that the maritime industry and Cruise industry is going through is unprecedented. I am very proud of how far we have come today with this industry but it is clear that the journey ahead is still long and I see 2 challenges in our field of business:

1. Getting access to Carbon neutral fuels at scale and places where Cruise vessels operate. Every year our engines and other systems are becoming more and more efficient, but Carbon neutral fuels will be essential to get to Carbon neutral operations.

1. Managing the technology complexity on board of Cruise vessels. If I see what kind of advanced technology that Cruise lines are implementing on their ships today in order to minimize the environmental footprint than I am proud of our role in that and see that Cruise is leading the maritime decarbonization, however I also see that Cruise lines need to prepare for the lifecycle aspect of these technologies. At the same time, it is more and more difficult to find good capable crew on board to manage and maintain these systems so here I see a challenge that needs to be addressed.

(Andrea) What is Wärtsilä doing to support your clients in achieving their challenging sustainability targets?

(Maikel) Our portfolio for the Cruise segment these days is very wide when it comes to energy production and distribution on board, propulsion and maneuvering systems and navigation and automation systems. We say From Bridge to Propeller…. And in all those systems we want to be leading on the decarbonization aspects and TCO. We have for example a very wide portfolio of Future Fuel engines that can run on LNG and Methanol next to Diesel and HFO and we see a very high interest from our Cruise customers to build their vessels with these technologies. Next to that we also make sure that our engines come with a fuel handling and storage system such as the LNGPac and MethanolPac. This allows us to offer a complete solution that is also serviced by a single lifecycle partner which is an important aspect. We are also developing Carbon Capture technology both in a post combustion method as well as in a pre-combustion method. Further we offer battery hybrid systems and various other electrification and energy saving technologies. And last but certainly not least is that we work a lot with data to optimize the use of our systems in the most optimal way while also safeguarding uptime. We offer our customers performance based service agreements, we call these Guaranteed Asset Performance. Here we agree with our customers which parameters they want to have secured over a lifecycle of the installation for example fuel consumption, emissions and uptime and then it is up to us to make that happen.

(Andrea) What keeps you busy these days? 

(Maikel) I spend most of my time on Decarbonization of Cruise ships both new vessels as well as existing vessels. I am in contact with many partners in the Cruise industry that are working on new vessel projects and all of them are have a very high focus on energy efficiency making the design as flexible as possible so they can safely navigate the energy transitions. Next to that I am a frequent speaker at conferences and now I am preparing for sessions at CLIA Cruise week in Genova in March and Seatrade Cruise Global in Miami in April.

(Andrea) Can you tell us about some new innovative features that Wärtsilä is preparing for the cruise industry?

(Maikel) We are currently rolling a huge portfolio extension of Methanol capable engines which were announced in December 2023. This means that the Wärtsilä 20, Wärtsilä 31, Wärtsilä 46F and Wärtsilä 46TS are released for new projects on methanol which is super exiting. This means that we are offering a new decarbonization option for Cruise customers that want to use this fuel in their decarbonization strategy. Also end of last year we have launched the Wärtsilä 46TS DF which is setting a new benchmark for efficiency and minimizing emissions in the large bore LNG engines. Also for this engine there is a high interest from our Cruise customers and we have a growing orderbook.