Videos

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] Vikings Ocean ships were designed to be different, to be more kind to the environment, by incorporating key features such as the bulbous bow. - [Richard] The bulbous bow is designed to alter the way that the ship makes waves as it moves through the water.

They're quite sophisticated and it's taken months to design.

Without the bulbous bow, you would have a a very large bow wave, which causes a lot of resistance.

The ship has to generate power to get over that resistance.

By putting a bulbous bow on there, you are making an energy saving device, and it will save the ship five, six, 7% of the power that you need to generate for propulsion. - [Narrator] The aft was also designed to conserve energy. - [Richard] When the stern of the ship, there is a ducktail, which sticks out from the back.

It's like a platform.

It's designed to smooth the wake out of the vessel.

The resistance of the ship through the water is actually proportional to the length of the vessel.

It's like a pencil.

The longer you make it, the faster it will go for a certain power.

So we've made the ship longer.

It goes the right speed using less power. - [Narrator] And beneath the waves, Viking ships deploy advanced technology. - [Richard] We have an innovative propeller and rudder code, the PROMAS system, that's developed by Rolls Royce, and we are the first cruise company to have adopted this.

The propeller and the rudder are almost touching each other.

The water seems to go around the rudder in a much more efficient way than normal.

The system will save us somewhere between three and 5% of fuel.

We saw the big advantages and decided we would go for it.

It's absolutely fantastic. - [Narrator] Inside flexibility leads to more savings. - [Richard] The ship has four main engines, two different sizes, some with 12 cylinders and some with nine cylinders.

The idea is that when we are operating at different speeds and different levels of power, we can combine the engines into different groups of engines and have 9, 12, 21, and so on.

That enables us to get a smooth range across all the different powers that we need.

The engine works best almost at full power, so we have an engine management system which cuts in and brings the engines online just as we need them.

Cuts 'em out as we don't need them. - [Narrator] No stone was left unturned in the search for savings. - [Richard] The cooling water for the engines comes from seawater.

It's coming in and going around the engines.

What we do with that water is we put it through a heat exchanger and we can take the heat out, use that to heat up the water that we are then going to use in the cabins and the galley so that we have a way of making hot water without actually using any extra energy.

The water that goes back over the side from cooling the engines is almost the same temperature as it was when it came on board.

It's not any heat going out over the side. - [Narrator] Vikings Ocean vessels are some of the most energy efficient at sea, but we're always searching for new ways to save even more.

Viking has reinvented the ocean voyage.

Experience it for yourself on board our beautiful ships.