Peace Boat is in the final steps of a bidding process to order the Ecoship, which the cruise ship operator hopes will be the greenest ship in the industry.
Director and co-founder Yoshioka Tatsuya says the organisation is on track to place the order in the middle of this year, with delivery targeted in the late spring of 2020.
"We are very near," he told TradeWinds on the sidelines of the Seatrade Cruise Global conference.
Conforms with mission
Peace Boat, which a social business currently uses its 1,020-berth Ocean Dream (built 1981) for educational and cultural cruises, is planning to build a cruise ship that embodies its environmental protection mission as a nonprofit organisation by having a low-carbon environmental footprint.
The 55,000-gt ship will have dual-fuel engines that can run on diesel and LNG, and it will have retractable sails, retractable wind generators, solar panels to produce 750 kilowatts of electricity and even kinetic floors that use passenger footsteps to generate electricity.
Peace Boat claims its design will cut propulsion energy by 20% and electricity load by 50%, although some technical experts question whether the company can deliver on the full cornucopia of technology that the organisation is boasting.
This article has been amended since publication to clarify that Peace Boat is a social business with a for-profit arm.
