| Lürssen | 180.00M | "AZZAM" ex Project 'Azzam' |2013 |

Wow look at those exhausts...

This really needed to be nuclear powered and have a few gun turrets, missile launchers; a couple Phalanx anti missile systems, and maybe an ASROCK launching system.

Lm 2500

It is amazing that the General Electric LM2500 Gas Turbine is still in production. Its basis, the aircraft engines TF-39 and the later CF-6 are over 45 years old. The early TF-39 engines were used for the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy program and the CF-6 for aircraft like DC-10, B-747 and A-300. Still going strong!

Probably in double letter revision level... ! Anyway lots of little improvements along the way and better engine controls... now electronic which you know on aircraft means multiple redundancy and covering all failure modes. Darn good engine... well developed and proven.

One more comment, power plant (aircraft) development takes as a rule of thumb about 10 years for an entirely new engine. The costs are huge so the design has to last for a long time. First, to recover the money invested. Second, to run through all possible improvements before considering "lets do a new one". Third, that gestation time on the new one is just so great and the risks to achieve real improvement are high enough to warrant taking the safe road and just using a proven engine in an airframe that might only take a couple years development at most. I will disqualify stealth or spiral development technologies here as they never get really done. But otherwise conventional airframes are not as they say rocket science but new jet engines are.

Your need to own a few oil fields and a refinery or two... to have those!

Modern jet engines a realy highly advanced pieces of machinery. If you think about geared turbo fans, variable inlet guide vanes or internally cooled mono cristal titanium turbine blades, where the inner turbine temperarure is far above the melting point of the turbine blates and so on. Encountering a birdstrike, a sustained compressor stall or an contained or even uncontained titanium fire on your engine within the turbine is no fun at all. It scares the s..... out of you !!! I know it, I have ruined a few jet engines (no gas turbines jet) beyond repair in my life.

I am looking forward to the carrier operation of the F-35 JSF, melting the carrier deck with its high EGT on vertical landings. (b.t.w. the "old" LM 2500 already has a EGT of more than 600 degrees celsius).

You need to own a few oil fields and a refinery or two... to have those!

B.T.W. I calculate the fuel consumption of Azzam with all 4 engines at rated power plus two 16 V 4000 gensets at 80 % load at about 6.185 Gal per hour. With her published fuel capacity of 264.550 Gal (1.000.000 Liters by the way !!), she would have a (theoretical range to dry) of a minimum of 1.300 NM at 30 Kts or above. Not bad at all, I would say. A large modern destroyer, at this speed, would flame out before, if he could stay with her at all.

So, her best defence will be her speed for prolonged time.

Six thousand+ gallons per hour?

What rather amazes me now days they use rapid prototyping to create turbine blades. Awhile ago attended a seminar where the VP of manufacturing at Rolls Royce gave a little talk about some of these new techniques.

These yachts are pretty amazing like this Azzam, in that I hardly ever hear of teething problems. But then I don't hang around the shipyard. Of course, they really are not the same challenges one sees in turbine engine development or cutting edge aircraft.

You mentioned the F35. Well the F35 has some of problems to sort yet before it starts burning lots of holes in the deck...
But I think the remaining issues will be sorted... and then NAVSEA will get to sort the holes in the deck issue.

I calculated/estimated 5612 gallons US per hour... but then I guess I should have gone and looked up the manufacturers fuel specific curves rather than just rule of thumb it... !

If you can afford to build and operate a 180m yacht... you can afford the gas.

But one of the old USN nuclear DLGNs or CGNs would run it to ground...

Fluel flow

I think we are both pretty close with our fluel flow numbers. It just depends on what version of the LM 2500 you are taking. It is only a theoretical number. But big GTs are hungry!!!!

I believe, 30 Kts is not the top speed of Azzam. It is most likely the maximum continuous speed of her. Top speed will 30 Kts + X (may be even 35 Kts). So my range figure is on the conservative side. And calculating only 2.6 Megawatts of hotel load during cruise (for this giant) is also a very low figure.

And nuclear powered ships do not count for the race.

Large container vessels can do 25 Kts+. But this continuously for 15.000 NM. Who is the winner now?

Actually, you are right on that...
all the old DLGN/CGNs have been stricken and scrapped. The California and South Carolina were the first of the new line and were stricken last... and the fastest. The Virginia... Texas class were slower and amazingly some were stricken and scrapped with less than 1000 EFPH (effective full power hours) on the clock... brand new basically. The older Bainbridge and Truxtun, and Long Beach were not as fast as the two California class. But any of them would run to ground any 25 knot conventional ship.

But once you're used to going fast it is hard to go back. Less time between ports!

Oh, I had no idea what the Hotel load would be and my 5612 gph number is propulsion only.

What I don't understand here on the forum, particularly after posting in the Diesel Electric Thread, what is the concern about fuel consumption. I read in here about it all the time... like a 40m with 35 gallons US per hour or something like... I can tell you when you pay the bills and that boat costs $2 million plus a year whether it is 35 or 70gph or in this case 5600 or 6100 as an owner I don't care. Now being a snail boat guy maybe it does not matter but many motor yacht owners... who I socialize with.... don't even know the numbers and really don't care.

However, if I were to want to spend the kind of money on a yacht Azzam costs... heaven only knows.

I would build a submarine yacht... use a 214 type...

Air Power Asia: Indonesia (TNI - AL) Acquire 3 unis Submarine from South Korea

Maybe even get a deal from ThyssenKrupp Marine now that Greece has backed out due to not getting the latest installment of some 120,000,000 Euro bribe

Greece’s U-214 Submarine Order: Default & Settlement

Get a fancy interior designer to fix it up... and then lurk around all the jet set watering holes... only going up for air every now and then... and not have the worry of rough weather transits between or complications zero speed stabilizers... as I get sea sick easy when I cannot see the horizon.

Hi,

In case it missed your attention whilst living in France and pushing your Anglo ancestors, the Greeks are broke so why should taxpayers that might include you fund their fanciful needs?

I just wonder if Mr. P. Takis Veliotis was involved in the bribery there in Greece.
FYI: He used to run General Electric Boat Works in Groton, CT and through corruption and bribery managed to pass of two Los Angeles Class subs on the American taxpayer... where every single weld in the pressure hulls were bad and the records covered up... USN ended up getting stuck for over a billion dollars in repair costs on the two "new" subs... then he ran off to Greece with a fortune to live in luxury before he could be brought to justice.

The Greeks really gave the Germans hell over those subs making all kinds of crazy claims trying to get more and more bribes and then not accepting everything on trivial excuse to get more.

But that is nothing comparied to how the US Department of Defense is run now-a-days... it makes how military procurement was done in the banana republics look tame... heaven even the banana republics cannot afford the corruption and have cleaned things up.

I just wonder if yachts have these kinds of bribe and kickback... etc problems... ?

Now, please remember what this thread is about; Lürssen's 180m superyacht project 'Azzam'

Google is your friend

My assumption about Azzam, heaving a second, slow speed propulsion, steering and stabilization was correct.

I do not know, whether I am allowed to post those pictures (copyright), but if you google for Azzam, especially for pictures made by photographer Martin Fischbacher, you will find pictures of her sitting in the dry dock with clearly visible and deployed large stabilizers (mid hull) and thrusters (in front of the rudder/stabilizers) under her stern.

A perfect propulsion package (may be a little bit over the top) but fascinating!!!! I am looking forward to see the first picture of her leaving boiling water behind at 30 plus X.

Hi,

You will most probably find that these are Schottel Pump Jets.

These are used on a number of Lurssen and other yachts as both bow and stern thrusters as well as an alternate propulsion method.

For the bowthruster I am 100 % with you. But if you are looking at this blowup, around the corner, satelite photo, it looks to me like a retractable, may be even steerable thruster with cord nozzle from the alchemists laboraty of Wärtsilä or Schottel.

Hi,

It could very well be equipped with a pair of these puppies right here.

Voith | Press Releases | Voith Inline Thruster with Swing-Out Unit

If I compare the guys on the platform with the size of this thruster, it could be if the make is Schottel at max. an SRP 1010 or 1212. Not powerful enough for this giant. If make is Wärtsilä one of the below.

The Voith would be my first choice also, great stuff.