MarAd Announces Vessel Design Challenge

The Maritime Administration’s (MarAd) Maritime Environmental and Technical Assistance program is issuing a request for proposals for its Vessel Design Challenge. This challenge intends to fund multiple design teams willing to undertake integrated design work to improve fuel efficiency and reduce vessel underwater radiated noise (URN) to create the next generation of U.S. vessels — including inland vessels.
Individual awards depend on the number of designs proposed for the package. Awards are intended to be for not less than $150,000 and likely not more than $450,000. Project completion timeline is 12 to 18 months. Total funding available is up to $1.25 million.
The proposed plan should include the expected timeline (not to exceed 18 months) inclusive of kick-off meetings with MarAd, design and technology integration and assessment, an interim progress report detailing vessel design and technology application progress, data collection and analysis and final report deliverables.
“The most promising opportunities for optimizing fuel efficiency gains and achieving URN reductions are in the early ship design stage, using a systems approach,” MarAd said. “This requires intentional and integrated ship designs that prioritize fuel efficiency while simultaneously reducing URN. Advanced fluid dynamic modeling enables comparison among hull, engine and propeller design and arrangement, providing valuable information to the industry about the return on investment for various technology and design optimizations at the design phase.”

Design proposals can include: existing projects that would be redesigned, forthcoming projects that are just beginning the design specification phase or designs that are theoretical or more experimental.

There are no restrictions on eligible vessels; however, given MarAd’s mission, vessels should be “commercially useful” and generally would not include small watercraft, recreational vessels or fisheries vessels. Eligible designs include vessels operating in coastal or inland waterways as well as the Great Lakes.
Technologies should be centered around performance and demonstrating the feasibility and economic achievability of these combined approaches and should be dictated by capacity needs set by industry requirements (tug capacity, crew capacity, operations support, range, TEU, cargo etc.). Designs should note specifically the technology readiness level and the commercial availability of any technologies used.
An ideal team should represent the concept of a design-build approach and include: naval architects; marine engineers; shipyards; owners, operators or buyers; technology proivders, including fuel suppliers, as needed; and may include operator/charter party, BCO, logistics partners, port, city or public entity or private financing partners.

Teams may submit one or more vessel designs to the challenge. Funding amounts will be based on the number of vessel designs proposed, their technology innovation or a combination thereof.
One or all proposed designs may be funded, depending on proposals. There is no limit to number of teams an organization can participate in; however, an organization may only lead one team/proposal.  No identical teams with rotating leads will be permitted. Preference will be given to proposals with team leads represented by U.S. companies, those with U.S. headquarters and those operating under the U.S. flag.
Proposals in response to this request for proposals are limited to 20 pages and must be received within 120 days of the publication of this notice. Proposals will be screened for use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools. Any use of AI tools in generating content for the proposal must be clearly identified and justified.
For more information, conditions and specifications, visit the full MarAd announcement at https://sam.gov/workspace/contract/opp/b6164585e8a94e5984649b1e0afef326/view?utm_source=chatgpt.com.