RV Anna Weber-van Bosse

The Dutch marine research community realises that the 3 national research vessels will have to be replaced within the next decade. An important consideration for the decision-making process was financing. So the fleet renewal process began with placing the ‘new Pelagia’ on the NWO National Roadmap for Large-Scale Research Facilities (GWI). For this the marine research community wrote a proposal, presented by Jack Middelburg.

After the project was included in the GWI Roadmap, NWO formed the PC-GWI committee, on the condition that it would include financing for the equipment and operation of the new vessel. Together with the marine research community, NIOZ drew up a proposal for including the NMF in the GWI Roadmap as well. After this NWO put the initiative on the shortlist of requests that can be submitted from the Roadmap for a biannual call.

Five meetings were held with stakeholders, during which the design of the new vessel was discussed with the marine research community. Such as the size of the aft deck, the number of cabins and research containers, the ice class, the suitability for operating a remotely operated vehicle, etc. The ambition was to build a vessel with limited dimensions, as innovative and sustainable as possible, for a planned service life of 30 years or more.

NMF submitted the formal financing request to NWO in 2019. After a round of improvement suggestions, representatives of all participating Dutch universities presented the proposal to NWO, which sought the advice of an international committee of experts. NWO then granted approval for the definitive design of the Pelagia II, which cleared the way for the call for tenders.

The maritime design bureau C-Job began working on the design of the Pelagia II. The definitive design gradually started to take shape under the direction of Alex Cofino, Head of NMF. The Fleet Renewal Task Force was formed to communicate about the progress of each step in the process. A mock-up of the design was also built in the shipyard to evaluate the dimensions of the various facilities.

One of the conditions for financing the new construction was the acquisition of a grant for innovative sea-going research equipment from the Large-Scale Infrastructure call. To that end, a national consortium of all seagoing scientific disciplines drafted a proposal under the leadership of Gert-Jan Reichart. After the proposal was reviewed and defended before an international committee, the definitive grant award was announced in 2020.

NMF and C-Job joined together to draught the technical specifications for all of the vessel’s components. These included a comprehensive and highly detailed description of each of the cabins, pipelines and systems, including the clean water system, the drop keel for underwater measurements, and the CTD system.

NWO, NMF and experts in the field of Dutch science history completed the process of naming the three new vessels based on 10 criteria. An 11th condition applied to the largest vessel, which would be named after a female scientist. The preferred name was Anna Weber-van Bosse: the first female marine researcher to earn international renown.

The European tender process began in the form of an ‘Competitive procedure with negotiations’. A pre-determined number of shipyards were selected based on these criteria. This form of tendering was chosen because the preliminary tenders could be received and evaluated before the negotiation rounds could begin, in order to arrive at the optimal definitive tender.

Seven shipyards submitted tenders for the shipyard selection phase. After an initial selection round, five of the yards were chosen to begin the next phase of tenders and negotiations. In May 2021, these five shipyards submitted the initial tenders for the subsequent negotiation rounds. One of these yards withdrew its offer from the procedure during this period, and other shipyards declared bankruptcy.

Five rounds of negotiation were conducted with each of the three remaining shipyards in order to coordinate the NIOZ requirements with the expertise available in the market.

This process eventually led to the three shipyards submitting a definitive tender on 22 August 2022. The Tender Committee then evaluated these tenders in September 2022, before submitting its recommendations to the board of NWO. [ link to Q&A]

The NWO board issued its positive recommendation in October 2022, and the preliminary contract decision was announced to the parties on 1 November 2022. A 20-day appeals period followed.

In late November 2022, the Dutch marine research community and the public at large were informed that the shipyard Astilleros Armon Vigo S.A. had been awarded the contract for the construction of the RV Anna Weber-van Bosse.

On 16 December 2022, the contract for the construction of the new Dutch ocean-going research vessel, the RV Anna Weber-van Bosse, was signed on Texel by representatives of NWO (Marcel Levi), NIOZ (Han Dolman) and Spanish shipbuilder Astilleros Armon.