Knud E. Hansen is also responsible for the concept design of the GG5G Class which was developed in close cooperation with Grimaldi and Finnlines. As earlier reported, the three ships for Finnlines will be adapted to the Finnlines requirements with a trailer capacity of 5,800 lanemetres, compared with 7,800 lanemetres on the standard GG5G design. In addition to trailers, Finnlines’ typical cargo mix also includes containers, sto-ro paper cargo and new cars. As the weather deck will primarily be used for the stowage of containers and portable tanks, the Finnlines ships will have four rather than five decks for rolling cargo and the trio will also incorporate over 5,000m² of car decks.

The ships’ dimensions as well as the twin-screw hull form and two-stroke machinery will be identical to the standard GG5Gs, yet the Finnlines ships will be strengthened to ice class 1A Super standards. As per the above artist’s impression, the vehicle decks will be fully enclosed whereas the standard design boasts side openings on decks 5 and 7.

The vessels, to be delivered from 2021, will also keep all the green features of the nine GG5Gs to be built for Grimaldi, including exhaust gas scrubbers, large lithium batteries that will supply the hotel load in port – thus guaranteeing zero emissions when alongside – as well as an air bubbling system to reduce resistance. The batteries will be recharged during navigation via shaft generators using peak shaving and solar panels.

In a recent interview with Shippax, Emanuele Grimaldi revealed that the three GG5Gs for Finnlines would replace lengthened Breeze Class tonnage on the Baltic – North Sea – Biscay service. The three released Breeze Class vessels will, in their turn, increase the frequency on each of the Travemünde-Uusikaupunki-Turku, Rostock-Hanko and Gdynia-Hanko routes.