The Eleventh Annual International Student Design Competition for a Safe, Affordable Ferry

A project of the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association

The goal of the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association (www.ferrysafety.org) is to reduce ferry fatalities.  The objective of the International Student Design competition is to reduce ferry fatalities with designs of safe affordable vessels.

For the past eleven years, awards of $10,000 annually have been made to student teams, with the top prize each year being $5000.  An impressive roster of internationally recognized maritime professionals serve as judges.  Awardees have been recognized at international maritime conferences and through widespread media reports.   The competitions for preceding years were to design: a passenger ferry for the Bangladesh river system, an inter-island RoPax for Papua New Guinea, an inter-island RoPax for Indonesia; a passenger ferry for Bangkok; a passenger ferry for the Singapore Straits between Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore; a passenger ferry for the Pasig River of Manila, a RoPax for Lake Victoria, a RoPax for the Amazon River, a RoPax for the Brahmaputra River; an electric ferry for the Pasig River of Manila, and a RoPax ferry for the Niger River of Nigeria..

The 2024-25 Design Competition for a Safe Affordable Ferry will be focused on designing an electric ferry for the City of Lagos in Nigeria.

Student teams that register by November 30, 2024, will be provided with the Terms of Reference. Entries are due on December 31, 2024.. For questions kindly contact Dr. Roberta Weisbrod, executive director of the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association at ferrysafety@gmail.com.  Please register through https://ferry-safety.squarespace.com/registration  

Initial registration should be by the team captain and provide the captain’s name, academic institution, address, phone number, and email address; faculty advisor, name, address, phone number, and email address, and other team members' names and email addresses.  (Team members may be modified by the time of submission of design).  Only one team per school will be accepted. Teams will be provided with a registration number and will receive the detailed Terms of Reference for the vessel to be designed.