Damen has announced a new Helsinki office, which the company said is being established to take advantage of the depth of engineering expertise that exists in the country following the group’s entry last year into building large vessels for the RoPax, cruise and offshore markets via its new Romanian yard, Damen Shipyards Mangalia. The new office will augment and extend Damen’s engineering capability in this market segment.

Finland was selected as the location, according to Damen, because, along with Italy, Germany and France, it is one of the leading countries in the design and build of cruise and RoPax vessels, as well as having expertise in ice-class vessels for the expedition segment of the cruise market.

Helsinki also facilitates travel between Damen engineering entities in Gdansk and Rotterdam.

Damen Engineering Helsinki will focus on concept and basic engineering with an initial target of around 30 people to be based there by the end of 2020 working in close cooperation with their colleagues within Damen.

“We are now focused on building the team,” said Damen’s Frank Rebel, “and we already have two projects to start with: a cruise vessel and a RoRo vessel.”