Background

European shipbuilders are facing a tough competition due to worldwide shipbuilding over capacity. In addition, climate change and increased public awareness call for reduced environmental impact and increased safety of shipping.

The project BESST was initiated by EuroYards, an EEIG representing leading European shipyards, with the strategic goal to develop ships with substantially improved Life Cycle Performance (LCP), compensating higher initial cost. The main impact factors on LCP are cost, environmental impact, safety and societal needs.

The challenge of the project is to ensure optimal interaction and integration of all sub-systems on ship level, by applying sophisticated process skills, technological innovations for specific ship systems and available research results will be applied. This requires, along with technical innovations, to develop a holistic approach for life cycle performance assessment.

Focus is put on the market segment of high value added, complex, one-of-a-kind ships, in particular cruise vessels, passenger ships, ferries and mega yachts. However, the involvement of eight shipyards, 20 research institutes and universities, 5 classification societies and 31 industrial companies (17 of the SMEs) will make sure, that results can also be applied to other types of ships.