Assessment of profit, cost, and emissions for slender bulk vessel designs

Abstract This paper assesses profit, cost and emissions for slender bulk vessel designs. Traditionally bulk vessels have been designed to maximize cargo carrying ability at the lowest building cost and not on reducing energy consumption. The outcome has been shoebox shaped vessels with short bow sections and hence rather poor hydrodynamic performance even at calm sea and even worse in rough sea. High fuel costs and the mandatory energy efficiency design index, as well as increased environmental concerns have challenged this practice. The present paper provides an assessment of alternative bulk vessel with focus on hull slenderness, expressed by the length block coefficient for alternative fuel price and freight rate scenarios. Our results indicate that slender designs reduce emissions and increases the profit compared to the traditional full bodied designs.