SAL Signs MoU With Wuhu Shipyard to Double Its Orca Fleet to Ten

German heavy-lift carrier SAL Heavy Lift has signed a memorandum of understanding with China's Wuhu Shipyard covering five additional 14,600 dwt Orca-class multipurpose heavy-lift vessels, a step that would take the programme to ten ships.

The agreement was signed on 3 September during SMM 2026 in Hamburg. It remains a memorandum rather than a set of firm shipbuilding contracts, and no contract value or delivery schedule has been disclosed.

SAL launched the Orca programme in 2022 with four firm vessels and two options, exercising one of those options in late 2023 to take the confirmed series to five. Three are in the water: Elise, Frida and Patricia, all delivered this year. CSRLotta and Vera complete the initial five-ship series.

The design is built around a single box-shaped cargo hold measuring 107 metres by 18.5 metres by 13.3 metres, and two fully electric 800-tonne cranes that lift 1,600 tonnes in tandem. The ships have hybrid propulsion, shore-power capability and a methanol-ready arrangement, with a maximum speed of 18.5 knots. The class specification is published by the owner.

That combination is aimed squarely at where the heavy-lift market has moved. Offshore wind components, port and industrial modules and process plant have grown faster than the crane capacity able to lift them, and a 1,600-tonne tandem lift covers a band of cargo that previously needed either a much larger and less flexible ship or a shore crane at both ends. The box hold matters for the same reason: single-piece cargo that will not tolerate a shaped hold is exactly the cargo that pays.

Doubling a newbuilding programme at a Chinese yard is also a statement about berth availability. European and Korean capacity is booked years out and priced accordingly, while Wuhu has the slots and the willingness to repeat a design it has already built. Repeating a series compresses the learning curve at the yard and keeps a fleet of near-identical ships that can be planned interchangeably, which is worth more to a project carrier than a marginally better one-off.

SAL Heavy Lift GmbH and Co KG is a Hamburg-based heavy-lift, project cargo and offshore shipping company within Germany's privately held Harren Group. Wuhu Shipyard Co Ltd is headquartered in Wuhu, Anhui province, with shipbuilding operations in Wuhu, Weihai and Nantong.

Whether the five become steel depends on the conversion of the memorandum into contracts, and nothing in the announcement fixes a date for that.

This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 10 September 2026.