Autonomous electric barges built by Cochin Shipyard to begin Norway trip
The Hindu
KOCHI
Two autonomous electric barges that were built by Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) for a Norwegian firm will begin their journey to Norway on board a yacht-transport carrier on Monday.
The 600-tonne electric barges named Maris and Teresa, each of which has a length of 67 metres, were placed on board the 210-metre-long mother vessel following an eight-hour effort on Sunday. The mother vessel owned by a Dutch firm was lowered 8.90 metres into the backwaters and its deck filled with water, following which tugs were used to pull the barges on board. This was followed by the raising of the mother vessel. The barges are expected to reach Norway in a month.
The electric barges were built for ASKO Maritime, the largest supermarket chain in Norway, which aims to achieve zero carbon emission in its logistics service by 2026.
After commissioning of the autonomous equipment and field trials in Norway, the vessels will operate as fully autonomous ferries that can transport 16 fully loaded trailers in one go.
![](/newspic/picid-1269750-20250217064624.jpg)
When fed into Latin, pusilla comes out denoting “very small”. The Baillon’s crake can be missed in the field, when it is at a distance, as the magnification of the human eye is woefully short of what it takes to pick up this tiny creature. The other factor is the Baillon’s crake’s predisposition to present less of itself: it moves about furtively and slides into the reeds at the slightest suspicion of being noticed. But if you are keen on observing the Baillon’s crake or the ruddy breasted crake in the field, in Chennai, this would be the best time to put in efforts towards that end. These birds live amidst reeds, the bulrushes, which are likely to lose their density now as they would shrivel and go brown, leaving wide gaps, thereby reducing the cover for these tiddly birds to stay inscrutable.