Amerigo Vespucci: Retrofitting of propulsion and generation systems on the italian training's tall ship

The training tall ship Amerigo Vespucci is the masterpiece of the Italian Navy fleet. Counting about 80 years of service, its refitting was mandatory, due to severe critical issues in efficiency, sustainability, logistic management and operation safety. Taking advantage of the full renewal, an innovative propulsion system has been designed. In this paper the new power system configuration, the requirements, and the design criteria are reported, together with the description of the peculiarities of the new propulsion system. The activities to be carried out in order to guarantee a safe and efficient plant operation (e.g. power system simulator development) are also outlined in the final section.