The world’s first (camouflaged) Electric tanker gets Smart Bridge:
https://www.jrc.co.jp/eng/about/news/2021/0426-1.html
Maybe the first “battery electric” tanker but the first electrically propelled tanker was the Russian Vandal in 1903.
Let’s not forget a whole fleet of T2 tankers a generation later.
Maybe they should have just said it was the first battery powered tanker with a funny paint job. Well, maybe that is even stretching things, let’s not forget the German U-boat tankers, the “milchkuh” or milk cows that refueled the U-boats at sea during WW2. Maybe some of them had funny paint jobs.
I spent too brief a time in T2 tankers to replace an officer who was medi-vaced…she had the midship house moved aft and a brand new hull forward of the pump house. With a cargo of naphtha it was the cleanest and most relaxing trip I ever did.
Texaco Saigon was an accommodation aft T2 with a new hull. It suffered from excessive vibration on the bridge to the extent that the Mates had to write up the log elsewhere, from a rough log that was barely decipherable. I enjoyed running the 8-12 watch for a few months when I was Fifth Engineer. I thought the engine room very well designed and easy to understand and operate.
It was the Texaco Bombay I paid of the Texaco Southhampton and did about 3 weeks on her before going on leave as 2nd mate.
I don’t know about others, but I have never referred to diesel-electric ships as anything else than “diesel-electric”. However, I agree that this ship should probably be referred to as “fully-electric” tanker to avoid any confusion. Eventually we’ll probably see “non-fully-electric-but-yet-not-diesel-powered” tankers as well.
And since we are comfortably off-topic, in other news the world’s first tanker with diesel-electric Azipod propulsion tried to avoid a scrapyard by breaking off from tow off France. After the 1993 propulsion refit, the 1977-built Varzuga (ex-Uikku) became the first non-Soviet vessel to transit the Northern Sea Route and the ship that led to the development of so-called double acting ships that can transport oil, natural gas and minerals year-round from the Arctic without icebreakers. Despite an icebreaker bow, the ship had higher icebreaking capability when operating stern-first.
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Texaco Saigon was the best ship that I sailed on with Caltex/Texaco. What an awful outfit - I resigned once I had worked the required two year post Cadetship contract.