2 years as partner to ABBA Voyage

After two years as an official partner to ABBA Voyage, we can conclude that some things were hard to foresee. “Two different worlds but still trying to do something that hasn’t been done before” says ABBA member Benny Andersson.

2 years as partner to ABBA Voyage

After two years as an official partner to ABBA Voyage, we can conclude that some things were hard to foresee.

“Two different worlds but still trying to do something that hasn’t been done before” says ABBA member Benny Andersson.

To be perfectly honest, the partnership in the beginning wasn’t crystal clear. It started with an ABBA Voyage-branded Oceanbird vessel sailing to the tones of “Eagle”, which Benny Andersson is playing beautifully on the piano in the film above, and naming a premium section in the ABBA Arena to the Oceanbird Lounge.

This is just what is seen on the outside, but on the inside, it is even more. Regular meetings about anything from how to best give back to the local community, to setting a sustainability roadmap.

“It has become a friendship more than anything else”, says Ludvig Andersson, Producer ABBA Voyage. “We strive at ABBA Voyage, as most of us do I suppose, to be as sustainable as possible. And there is Oceanbird who specializes in that. Suddenly we had access to a lot of knowledge and knowhow through our partner.”

“ABBA has never had a partner or a sponsor or any such thing because they never wanted that. But then this happened and suddenly we did want it because it was something else” says Ludvig Andersson.

Richard Jeppsson, Wallenius

Something worth going for

It was formed around shared values between pioneers: ABBA Voyage and Wallenius owner family (Oceanbird is a joint venture between Wallenius and Alfa Laval). Both ABBA and Wallenius have pushed the limits on what is possible in their fields, whether it´s new ways of making pop music and stage shows, or developing wind-powered ships.

“We realize more and more how similar our values are. We have expanded each other’s competences to new areas,” says Richard Jeppsson, SVP Wind Powered Projects at Wallenius Lines.

Benny Andersson, ABBA

ABBA member Benny Andersson also express how much he appreciate the partnership.

“Oceanbird is a great, great, great project. Such a fantastic innovation. It’s really something worth going for”.

ABBA Voyage supported 5,000 jobs

In the first year of the show, with 1 million tickets sold, ABBA Voyage contributed to a capital injection of £322.6 million to the local area in East London and supported more than 5,000 jobs, according to the independent study “ABBA Voyage, Economic Impact & Social Value Assessment” by Sound Diplomacy and social value consultancy RealWorth.

Other initiatives to benefit social sustainability are:

Calmer Concerts: an evening with accessibility for neurodiverse and autistic audiences with extra trained staff, reduced arena capacity and chill out zones

An educational workshop for 800 schoolchildren at the ABBA Arena during the summer months

Collaboration with the lesbian and gay mental health charity ELOP for Pride month

Sign-language shows: ticket holders receive a seat in a booth with the best view of the interpreter

“The success of ABBA Voyage shows how London is the music capital of the world,” he said. “I’m proud that City Hall was able to help ABBA bring this pioneering show to east London, providing huge benefits to both the local area and London’s wider economy” says London mayor Sadiq Khan, in Wallenius magazine Our Way.

Wallenius on avatar voyage with Abba to wind-powered reality

 30 January 2023 Updated  

Wallenius on avatar voyage with Abba to wind-powered reality

Swedish shipping group Wallenius is on a voyage with avatars alongside compatriot pop legends Abba. It is borrowing Eagle song to promote its Oceanbird project.

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Swedish shipping group Wallenius is on a voyage with avatars alongside compatriot pop legends Abba from which it is borrowing a song to promote its Oceanbird project. But they are going in opposite directions.

Where Abba Voyage is a virtual concert with avatars used to recreate the singers from nearly 50 years ago, Oceanbird is using digital constructions to go forward with a new reality: to build a wind-propelled 7,000 vehicle-capacity car carrier that can cut carbon emissions by 90%.

Led by the AlfaWall Oceanbird joint venture with technology company Alfa Laval, the 11 partner-project aims to have a full-scale wing sail rig under land-based testing this year.

And a unit will be fitted to the existing Wallenius Wilhelmsen car carrier, the 71,673-gt Tirranna (built 2009) during a scheduled drydocking in mid-2024.

The project received €9m ($9.7m) in funding from the EU’s Horizon Europe grants system for renewable research this month to develop a wind-propelled newbuilding sailing by late 2026 or early 2027.

Land-based tests are expected to optimise sail assembly processes and examine how the mechanics and automated systems work, said Oceanbird managing director Niclas Dahl in a live and online briefing.

Testing under real-life conditions on the Tirranna will follow, in part to validate how well earlier computer design work, digital and real models plus wind tunnel and wave tank tests compare with performance at sea.

A lot of work needs to be done to prepare an existing high-sided ship not originally designed to take a sail, said Roger Strevens, vice president of global sustainability at Wallenius Wilhelmsen.

Structural and stability issues have to be addressed to take account of the extra weight and thrust stresses imposed by adding the sails, Strevens said, as well as crew training.

But the developers are not just looking at the design for the car carrier newbuilding, the Orcelle Wind, they also want to develop retrofit wing systems for ships from tankers to bulkers and boxships.

A wing sail will be fitted to Wallenius Wilhelmsen car carrier, the 71,673-gt Tirranna (built 2009) during a drydocking in mid-2024. Photo: AlfaWall Oceanbird

Oceanbird technical project manager Emil Kotz said added weight and propulsive thrust factors are the main elements for any vessel with a 40m-high sail weighing 150 tons

Weight has already been reduced while retaining the same performance, Kotz said, with the sail's size cut by 50% when an original telescopic design was changed to a tilting one.

The sail’s structural limit is 20 meters per second, equivalent to 40 knots, but Kotz said lower operational limits might be set for safety and crew comfort reasons.

Wallenius said future ships may be named after Abba hits when it last year that the virtual concert hall the Abba Arena in East London would have an Oceanbird Departure Lounge.

The ship project is now being promoted with the Abba song Eagle which includes the lines: “I dream I can spread my wings” and “Am I dreaming, or is it all real?”

Oceanbird aims to take a lead in making wind propulsion real.

Tightening environmental legislation and stronger carbon-cutting targets means everyone in shipping will have to find ways to cut emissions to be in compliance with regulations.

“We can’t be conservative. That’s a fast track to obsolescence, but we must be cautious,” Strevens said.