When the America’s Cup kicks off next year in the waters surrounding the city of Barcelona, the US team, ‘American Magic’ and the French team, ‘Orient Express’ will be equipped with two separate BGH-HSV (Hydrogen Support Vessel) carbon-neutral boats.
For the design of the hydrogen-powered ‘chase boats’, the yacht builder Bluegame – part of the Sanlorenzo Italian shipyard group – involved several top international players, including the TESYA Group, which participated in the design of the propulsion system with two Group companies, CGT and Finanzauto.
The first of the two boats was unveiled at the Genoa International Boat Show in Italy (21 to 26 September) – an innovation destined to go beyond sporting competitions and become a concrete example of how hydrogen has the potential to provide a sustainable propulsion system for pleasure boating.
The vessel has a cruising range of 180 miles and a top speed of 50 knots with zero emissions, emitting only a few drops of water. The development of the BGH’s on-board power and energy management system was coordinated by TESYA, a group of 24 companies and a leading provider of sophisticated services and integrated solutions for various sectors, including energy transition and power generation. For this particular project, TESYA put together a dedicated team, selecting engineers and technical specialists from two of the Group’s companies that operate in the pleasure and commercial boat sectors: CGT (operating in Italy) and Finanzauto (operating in Spain).
“The Strategy recently adopted by the member states of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) [1] focuses on the deployment of alternative fuels capable of guaranteeing zero or near-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030” – commented Giorgio Brenna, CEO of TESYA Group’s CGT. “One of our strategic plan objectives is to generate value in new business opportunities by developing more traditional lines of supply. The propulsion system for Bluegame is not just a prototype, but represents a potentially replicable model capable of acting as a reference for advanced technological innovations in the nautical sector.” Luca Santella, Head of Product Strategy for Bluegame: “From its very early days, Bluegame has made innovation one of its founding values and, with the BGH-HSV project, we have reached the pinnacle of this. We called upon the most experienced professionals in the industry and suppliers of the most advanced on-board equipment to achieve this goal. This included TESYA’s CGT and Finanzauto, who were involved in one of the most complex areas of the project: the power and energy management system. The partnership with TESYA – through CGT and Finanzauto – has proven to be a very successful and satisfying working relationship for the project team.”
[1] International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopts revised strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from international shipping. Source: https://www.imo.org/en/MediaCentre/PressBriefings/pages/Revised-GHG-reduction-strategy-for-global-shipping-adopted-.aspx
