Winner: 13th Annual International Student Design Competition

Success on a plate, Ferry safety, TNA May/June 2026

Designing a passenger ferry for the River Niger means confronting a particular set of constraints: variable water depth as shallow as 0.89m, shifting channels, water hyacinth overgrowth, subsurface wrecks and piracy on the Lokoja–Onitsha route.

The winning entry in the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association’s (WFSA) 13th Annual International Student Design Competition For Safe Affordable Ferries addressed all of them, and did so with a hull form and construction method chosen specifically to be buildable by a Nigerian shipyard.

Team Nagapasa, winners of the Safe Affordable Ferries competition (image: Universitas Indonesia)

First prize went to Nagapasa, a 10-member team from Universitas Indonesia led by Felicia Rachel Taruli Siregar, who also oversaw the ferry’s structural arrangement. Their design, MV Safarind, is a 36m flat-bottomed steel catamaran with a service speed of 27knots, capable of carrying 200 passengers and their cargo on each leg of the 200km route in approximately four hours.

The competition asks university teams to develop safe, affordable ferry concepts for inland and coastal routes in developing countries, where ageing vessels, overcrowding and poorly designed hulls frequently cause accidents and loss of life. Nigeria has provided the backdrop for the third year running, attracting 18 submissions in the 2025-2026 competition. Click here for the complete story.