"Exhaust gas has no longer been disturbing us for a while"

The inland waterway ship "Eiger" has been travelling with LNG since five years. Captain Bühler has only had good experiences with it. vc was on-board.

Rudolf Bühler plays Tetris on his monitor every day. He pushes the colourful blocks back and forth and is pleased when the jigsaw puzzle fits together again. This is not a leisure activity for the captain of the "Eiger", it is a professional must: "Each block on the loading plan stands for a container", said the 56-year-old Swiss, "and I have to position them so that they can be loaded and unloaded optimally at every harbour."

9th May, just before 8 am. On the way from Basel to Rotterdam, Rudolf stopped at the Rhine harbour of Strasbourg. Loading is carried out by crane as soon as the is inland waterway ship moored. "Here we are collecting ten containers today", said Rudolf, "We will be on our way in half an hour."

The "Eiger": year of construction 2001, 179 m long, space for maximum 354 standard containers. The inland waterway ship of the Dutch shipping company Danser was converted to LNG in 2014 - and that was being the first inland waterway container ship at all. The LNG tank costs us six container slots "but it was worth it to us." Many valves from HEROSE on the storage tank, on the bunker lines as well as on the GPU – the "Gas Processing Unit" – ensure for safe operation since then.    ▸