Safe Affordable Ferry Design Competition
14th Annual
International Student Design Competition
For the past 13 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 act as judges. Awardees have been recognized at international maritime conferences and through media reports.
For the 2026-2027 Design Competition for a Safe Affordable Ferry, we are seeking designs for safe ferries to address several emerging issues, specifically designing a 6000 GT RoPax ferry that will travel between the Port of Tanjung Perak, East Java, to the Port of Makassar, South Sulawesi. There are three major design challenges:
- The ROPAX must consider carrying Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) of at least 10 percent line-meter ship's capacity. Thus, the designer must consider the safety aspects of loading and stowage operations, as well as the onboard mitigation system, in case of BEV fire.
- The loading of an over-dimensioned and overloaded lorry (ODOL) is an issue that has to be addressed. Some current problems with ODOL vehicles include cargo manifest inspection (loaded by vehicle), vehicle securing systems, and ship stability calculations.
- The vessel design has to consider the issue of increasingly high swells/waves that are increasingly powerful and often not predicted.
Student teams that register between now and November 30, 2026 will be provided with the Terms of Reference. Design submissions are due on March 25, 2027. For questions, kindly contact Dr. Roberta Weisbrod, executive director of the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association (WFSA), at ferrysafety@gmail.com.
Please register through: www.ferrysafetydesigncompetition.org
Initial registration should be by the team captain and provide 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. There is no limitation on the size of the team. All team members must be students. Only one team may submit their design from each school. Students may join teams from other schools. Teams will be provided with a registration number and will receive the detailed Terms of Reference.
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.
Winner: 12th Annual International Student Design Competition
‘Naija Spirit’ wins WFSA contest for a safe Lagos ferry
By Martin Conway, The Royal Institution of Naval Architects, June 12, 2025
The 12th WFSA student design contest saw the association return to Nigeria, with David Okafor, a naval architect with the Nigerian Navy, again assisting in drawing up the specifications for the design teams. This year’s challenge called for a 200-pax electric ferry capable of navigating Lagos’ waterways, emphasising a 25km route linking Ikorodu, a northeastern business zone, to the CMS transport hub on Lagos Island.
This year’s winning entry was Naija Spirit, a 28m, double-deck aluminium catamaran, designed by Team Black Pearl of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET). Team Black Pearl was captained by final-year student Md. Safayet Hossain Shishir – who, incidentally, was part of the BUET team that secured second-place in last year’s WFSA River Niger design competition. Click here for the complete story.
Student Innovation: Still Going Strong
Editorial by Martin Conway, The Naval Architect, May 2025
I can’t remember the first time I covered the Worldwide Ferry Safety Association’s (WFSA’s)
international student design contest for a safe, affordable domestic ferry, but our report on the 12th instalment of the competition (see pages 30-36) reminds me of the many winners that Ship & Boat International profiled over the past seven to eight years--to the point that the contest became an annual fixture of our Ferries reports. Click here for the complete editorial.
Competitve Spirit
In The Naval Architect, May 2025
Team Black Pearl of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, victor in this
year’s Worldwide Ferry Safety Association student design contest, shares how it put
together the design for the winning concept for Lagos waterways. Click here for the complete article.
11th Annual International Student Design Competition
The 2023-2024 Design Competition for a Safe Affordable Ferry was focused on designing a RoPax ferry for the Niger River in Nigeria.
The first place winner was the Nawasena ITS team. Second place went to the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology team, and third place went to the Universitas Indonesia team. For more information, click the Student Awards Presentation (a PDF file).
9th Annual International Student Design Competition
Team Nawasena ITS won the competition for their ferry Lakshmi. Click here to read about the winning vessel and team in the Ship and Boat International Sept/Oct 2022 issue.
8th Annual International Student Design Competition
COVID makes
the design of an Amazon River ferry yet more pressing
The 2020-2021 Design Competition for a Safe Affordable Ferry focus is on designing a Ro-Pax ferry to make stops between Manaus and Tefe on the Amazon River in Brazil.
Click here for the winners.
7th Annual International Student Design Competition
The 2019-2020 Design Competition for a Safe Affordable Ferry focused on designing a Ro-Pax ferry for the Winam Gulf region of Lake Victoria in Kenya. The service will connect the newly revived Port of Kisumu and the coastal terminal at Mbita and other ports, supplementing the new and fairly successful Globology passenger-only ferry service, Waterbus East Africa.
Opening Presentation: WFSA Board Member Captain Nurur Rahman. Click here for the video.
First Place: Hochschule Bremen, City University of Applied Sciences, Germany. Click here for the video presentation.
Second Place: Universität Rostak, Germany. Click here for the video presentation. Click here for the PowerPoint slides (in PDF).
Third Place: Singapore Institute of Technology and Newcastle University. Click here for the video presentation. Click here for the PowerPoint slides (in PDF format).
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