Innehållsförteckning för January 2023 från Ships Monthly

RO-RO SHIP Eco Italia, the 12th hybrid ro-ro ship of the Grimaldi Green 5th Generation (GG5G) class, was delivered from the Chinese Jinling shipyard in Nanjing in November 2022. As with her 11 sister vessels already deployed in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe, she is one of the largest and most eco-friendly ro-ro units in the world for shortsea shipping. Eco Italia measures 238m by 34m and has a gross tonnage of 64,575 and a service speed of 20.8 knots. The loading capacity of her seven decks, two of which are hoistable, is twice that of the previous class of shortsea ro-ros operated by the Grimaldi Group. She has 7,800 lane metres, capable of carrying around 500 trailers and 180 cars. The increase in capacity does not affect fuel consumption,…

BALTIC FERRIES Color Line has streamlined operations in the Baltic. As a result of high energy costs and macroeconomic uncertainty, the operator has withdrawn Color Viking on the Sandefjord-Strømstad route and the cargo ship Color Carrier on the Oslo-Kiel route as it seeks to minimise the number of redundancies through redeployment to other ships. Color Viking has operated a year-round, daily service between Norway and Sweden for more than 20 years, but due to current economic uncertainty the route is no longer financially sustainable. Significant increases in the costs of fuel, shore power and commodity costs have also affected operations. Color Line will also end the operation of the freighter Color Carrier, which was deployed on the Oslo-Kiel route in 2019. The operation is no longer commercially sustainable as a…

LNG BOXSHIPS Honolulu-headquartered Matson has contracted Pennsylvania’s Philly Shipyard to build three 3,600TEU Aloha Class LNGfuelled container ships for delivery in 2026-27 at an aggregate price of approximately $1 billion. Once delivered, the Jones Act-compliant vessels will join two other Aloha class container carriers previously built for Matson by the Philly yard which entered service in 2018 and 2019, as well as a series of four smaller vessels delivered by the American builder between 2003 and 2006. The latest Aloha class triplets will be equipped with dual-fuel engines capable of operating on either conventional marine fuels or LNG, and will have a service speed in excess of 23 knots to allow them to run on the company’s highly competitive China-Long Beach, California express service. WATERFRONT • www.shipsmonthly.com • The Granary,…

JAPANESE CRUISING Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) plans to build two new 35,000gt cruise ships as its existing vessel, the 1990-built Nippon Maru, enters its forth decade of service. The two newbuilds, the first expected to enter service by 2027, are projected to cost nearly $720 million to construct and may be followed by two additional ships if Japan’s cruising demand continues to grow. President and CEO Takeshi Hashimoto said the company was assessing the investment in the two ships as part of a plan to diversify operations. Although curtailed by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, MOL plans to resume its international cruising operations with the 22,472gt Nippon Maru during 2023.…

RIVER THAMES High-speed river passenger service operator Uber Boat by Thames Clippers is planning a downstream route extension from Central London, with a service to Tilbury on the north bank in Essex and Gravesend further downstream on the opposite shore in Kent. It follows the successful experimental Saturday upriver trips last summer. To boost the operation, Uber, with the biggest and most modern Thames passenger fleet, has bought the historic 39m-long Gravesend Town Pier, which dates back to 1834. Restored in 2000, it also hosts the cross-Thames passenger link with Tilbury. Created as NBNA Thames Clippers by long-established passenger service operators Collins River Enterprises in 1999, the operator used second-hand tonnage before the start of a prolific newbuilding programme, with craft designed by naval architects AIMTEK for five different classes…

NEWBUILDS The stream of new cruise ships continues, with MSC Seascape being the latest delivery from Fincantieri. That ship, the fourth in the Seaside series, was handed over in mid-November 2022 before heading to New York for a naming ceremony on 7 December, with Sophia Loren once again godmother to an MSC ship. MSC Seascape will then be based in Miami. At over 170,000gt she is the largest cruise ship so far delivered by Fincantieri. Another Fincantieri newbuild, Brilliant Lady, the fourth ship in the Virgin quartet, was floated out at the Genoa shipyard on 25 November 2022. Meanwhile, the ninth ship in the Viking Star series, Viking Neptune, was handed over to Viking on 10 November by Fincantieri’s Ancona yard. This ship differs slightly from her earlier sisters in…

STAR CRUISES Following the bankruptcy of Genting Hong Kong early in 2022, subsidiary Star Cruises ceased trading and its ships were laid up. They were all more than 30 years old and heavily converted into casino ships, and unlikely to find further employment. The first to go was SuperStar Libra, in June 2022, after spending time as an accommodation ship at the Genting-owned MV Werften shipyard in Germany. The former Viking Line ferry Star Pisces followed in July. Now the sisters SuperStar Aquarius and SuperStar Gemini have been beached in India. This pair of French-built ships started as Norwegian Cruise Line’s Windward and Dreamward, becoming Norwegian Wind and Norwegian Dream in 1998. Norwegian Dream spent some summers operating from Dover, and is probably best remembered from that time for her…

US NAVY USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) has stopped off in the UK for the ship’s second international port visit, after Halifax in Canada. The US Navy’s newest, largest and most expensive nuclear-powered aircraft carrier anchored in the Solent for four days, with one of her Carrier Strike Group escorts, USS Thomas Hudner, visiting Portsmouth. Prior to her visit, the Ford Carrier Strike Group, comprising the cruiser USS Normandy (CG-60) and destroyers USS McFaul (DDG-74) and USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116), met up with seven NATO warships ships from Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands in the eastern Atlantic for Exercise Silver Wolverine. It was the first time the American carrier has operated with foreign warships since being commissioned in 2017. WATERFRONT • www.shipsmonthly.com • The Granary, Downs Court,…

A half-century ago this year the A remains of the last ship of a series of four passenger-cargo liners built in the late 1940s for Shaw Savill & Albion were being cut up at the yard of Boel & Fils at Temse, Belgium. The ship was the 15,869grt Ceramic, which had been completed by Cammell Laird in October 1948 for service between the UK, Australia and New Zealand. An earlier sister, and the leader of the class, the 15,682grt Corinthic, had also been finished by Cammell Laird, while the Harland and Wolff facility at Belfast delivered the 15,187grt Athenic and the Swan Hunter yard at Wallsendon-Tyne the 15,902grt Gothic. The four ships accommodated 85 first class passengers in relatively large superstructures, while 668,000ft3 of cargo, of which 510,000ft3 was refrigerated,…

White Star’s most famous ships have not always been as much a part of the public consciousness as they are today. In fact, it is curious to think that, in light of the considerable interest in Titanic, until the 1950s the story of the ship had been largely forgotten. It was only the release of Twentieth Century-Fox’s film Titanic in 1953, starring Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck, combined with the publication of Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember three years later, that the story of the legendary White Star liner fired the public’s imagination. This 40-year lapse may explain how some of the facts associated with Titanic have been related through numerous fables, legends and myths. Much of what we read on the Titanic is often ‘apocryphal, or at least…

The origins of today’s mighty Norfolk Navy Yard naval base can be traced to 1 November 1767 with the creation of a yard, the Gosport Shipyard, by Andrew Sprowle on the western shore of the Elizabeth River in Norfolk County in Virginia. Sprowle was a merchant and landowner in Portsmouth, Virginia and an occasional British naval agent. He had emigrated from Scotland in the mid-18th century to seek his fortune in America and settled in Virginia. The shipyard he founded was soon successful with several important clients, including the British Crown. Sprowle was loyal to Britain, and in 1775, during the American Revolution, he was forced to flee his home and businesses, which included the Gosport Shipyard, which was seized by the newly formed Commonwealth of Virginia. The shipyard continued…

letter of the month Russell Plummer’s fascinating article, Harwich-Hook: A Lasting Link (SM, Nov 2022), about the ferries on the Harwich to Hook of Holland run, brought back memories. My father was a major in the Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) responsible for land, coastal and river transport and air despatch in World War II and for a few years after the war, when he oversaw troopships operating between the two ports in the article. He was present at many major theatres of war, including El Alamein and Monte Cassino, and in April 1945 helped liberate the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. My mother used the Harwich-Hook route to take me, as a three-month-old baby, from Yorkshire to the Netherlands. We then travelled on one of the last troop trains across East…

BRITTANY FERRIES • MEDITERRANEAN SKY • BULKERS • NEWHAVEN FERRIES • MYSTERY OF SUBMARINE URGE BRITTANY FERRIES’ FUTURE LOOKING TOWARDS THE NEXT 50 YEARS Looking at the fleet of the wellknown French operator, which has redefined Channel crossings over the course of the last half-century. PLUS BEAUTIFUL BULKERS • The ubiquitous bulk carrier is not considered a beautiful ship by many, certainly not after the ships have seen decades of service and are streaked with rust. But when just out of the builder’s yard, the bulker can be a truly handsome vessel. MYSTERY OF THE SUBMARINE URGE • The submarine HMS Urge left Malta on 27 April 1942 and was never seen again, until the discovery of its wreck off Malta 80 years later. MEDITERRANEAN SKY • The story of…

FERRY INDUSTRY Stena Line has announced an expansion of capacity with the addition of a second ferry on its Rosslare to Cherbourg service, starting in June 2023. Stena Vision will increase frequency to six departure days a week on a route that has become increasingly busy since Brexit. Stena Vision will operate alongside existing vessel Stena Horizon and has a 1,300-passenger capacity and 485 passenger cabins. She has been operating in the Baltic Sea on the Polish Karlskrona to Gdynia route since 2010, but is due to be replaced by the new E-Flexer Stena Ebba in early 2023, after which she will move to Ireland.…

NEW CRUISE SHIP Arriving in Miami on 20 November 2022 after a 14-night crossing from Southampton, Carnival Cruises’ new flagship Carnival Celebration docked at PortMiami’s Terminal F. With an investment of $170 million, the facility is the line’s third terminal at the port and its largest. During the evening the terminal hosted the inaugural ceremony for the new ship, led by the line’s executives, including Christine Duffy, Carnival’s president. The ceremony, scheduled to be held outdoors, was instead held inside the ship’s atrium due to poor weather. The ship’s Godmother Cassidy Gifford, daughter of television personality Kathie Lee Gifford (Godmother of the first Celebration in 1987), christened the ship, with a traditional breaking of a champagne bottle, alongside Captain Vincenzo Alcaras. Carnival Celebration’s first cruise from Miami was a special…

CAL MAC The Scottish Government has allocated £115 million for two new ferries to be operated by Caledonian MacBrayne on the Skye triangle service from the mainland terminal at Kennacraig to Harris and North Uist. Similar to the pair ordered for the Islay route and now under construction at Turkey’s Cemre yard, the new Skye sisters will be 94.38m in length and handle 450 passengers, together with 100 cars and 14 commercial vehicles. When delivered in 2026, the vessels replaced will include the long-serving Hebridean Isles (1885/3,40gt). One newcomer will run from Lochmaddy to Uig and Skye, while the other will provide a direct service between Uig and Tarbert, Harris. As a result of the new order, the long-delayed Hull 802 from the Ferguson Yard at Port Glasgow on the…

NEWHAVEN-DIEPPE France’s Seine Maritime Authority confirmed in November 2022 that management of the English Channel’s Newhaven-Dieppe ferry route would remain in the hands of DFDS from 1 January 2023 to 31 December 2027 after a fresh tendering process attracted just one other bidder, believed to have been Brittany Ferries. The route was established in the 19th century and DFDS has been involved since 2013, when DFDS Seaways France was set up to run it as a joint venture. DFDS has an 82 per cent interest, with a minority holding for French company Louis Dreyfus Armateurs, the service using French-owned and-crewed vessels from Transmanche Ferries. The current winter schedule offers two return sailings a day, which will increase to three trips during the summer, using 18,425gt pair Côte d’Albâtre and Seven…

CHANNEL ISLANDS Godby Shipping’s 1990-built ro-ro freighter Midas (5,873gt) was chartered to Condor Ferries to cover sailings from Portsmouth to Guernsey and Jersey, standing in for Commodore Goodwill (1996/11,166gt), which suffered propeller damage while she was entering drydock at the Astilleros yard in Spain. Midas next headed north for a Smyril Line charter, running from Denmark to Iceland and the Faroe Islands. Built by Sietas in 1990 as Bore Sea, she took her present name in 2000. Elsewhere, Smyril’s passenger/car service, operated by Norrona (2003/35,966gt), is set to change. Due to the vessel’s high fuel consumption, calls at Seyðisfjörður in Iceland are to be suspended from 22 November 2023 until resuming on 20 March 2024. Noronna has a service speed of 21 knots from four MAK diesel engines and carries…

PORT NEWS With several popular cruise ports in Europe closed due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, other ports have been able to reap the benefit, and in some cases it has given them record years for cruise ship calls. Bodrum, in southern Turkey, cashed in on the closure of the Black Sea with 101 cruise calls in 2022, including 15 by Costa Venezia. Odyssey of the Seas was the largest visitor, and the largest ship ever to call at the port. Further north, Hamburg, too, had a record year, with 280 calls from 49 different ships, and a throughput of about 750,000 passengers. The port is also gearing up to supply more ships with shoreside power.…

DISNEY CRUISE LINE The almost complete Global Dream has been snapped up at what is being reported as a bargain price by Disney Cruise Line. The vessel, currently languishing in the MV Werften shipyard at Wismar, was, along with the shipyard itself, one of many victims of the Genting Hong Kong bankruptcy. Designed for the Chinese market, and with a maximum passenger capacity of 9,000, the vessel will clearly need a lot of work to transform her into a 6,000-passenger Disney cruise ship. This is where Meyer Werft, the builder of the current series of three ships for Disney, steps in. Meyer will complete the 208,000gt vessel at the Wismar shipyard, with a projected delivery date of 2025. Initial drawings show the ship with three pairs of funnels. She will…

ROYAL NAVY The UK MoD has formally announced an eagerly awaited order for the second batch of Type 26 frigates, with a £4.2 billion contract award to BAE Systems. Their names, Birmingham, Sheffield, Newcastle, Edinburgh and London, were revealed as long ago as 2018. Steel will be cut for Birmingham this winter, marking the start of the Batch 2 build phase. The Batch 1 ships Glasgow, Cardiff and Belfast are at various stages of construction at Govan, with the lead ship entering the water for the first time on 2 December 2022, and relocated the short distance downriver to Scotstoun for completion. The build process of the Batch 1 ships has been very slow to date. The future HMS Glasgow (F88) is currently scheduled to enter service by the end…

ROYAL NAVY Citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ‘Putin’s reckless disregard of international arrangements’, the Defence Secretary has shelved plans for a National Flagship to prioritise the procurement of two Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance ships (MROSS). The project to build a yacht to host trade and diplomatic events, a role similar to that played by HMY Britannia for 44 years, has been controversial ever since it was announced. The initial estimate of its cost has risen sharply, from £150 million to £250 million, which was to have come from an already pressurised naval budget. The two Multi-Role Ocean Surveillance ships, intended to protect subsea cables and pipelines, will be operated by the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. The first MROSS will be handed over in April 2023, several months ahead of schedule. The…

SHORTSEA Dutch shortsea operator Amasus Shipping BV has contracted Turkey’s Bogazici Shipyard to build a series of four open-top shortsea cargo vessels with the first to be operational by the end of next year. The Eems B-type ships, which have been designed and engineered in cooperation with Holland’s DEKC Maritime, are to measure 89m by 14m and will have a single hold with a capacity of 178,300ft3. They will be capable of carrying windmill blades and other project cargo in open top condition, as well as containers, bulk commodities and breakbulk cargoes in the hold. The sister vessels are to be powered by a diesel-electric propulsion system and will be configured to be capable of transitioning to nonfossil fuels in the future.…

CONTAINER SHIPS Taiwan’s Wan Hai Lines has taken delivery of Wan Hai A07 and Wan Hai A08, which are the first two vessels in a new series of 13,100TEU container ships it is having built by South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries. The twin vessels, which have a maximum cruising speed of 22 knots, measure 335m by 51m, and will sail on a loaded draught of 16m. All are being equipped with full-balanced twisted bulb rudders and pre-swirl fins to enhance propulsion efficiency and meet the highest level of requirement for Energy Efficiency Design Index (EEDI) phase III standards. The same technologies are being incorporated in a smaller series of 3,013TEU feeder vessels being completed for Wan Hai by the Japan Marine United Corporation yard at Kure, with Wan Hai 355,…

Norwegian Cruise Line’s new cruise ship Norwegian Prima, and the five other ships of the class, are the third iteration of Fincantieri’s Project Mille concept, following MSC’s Seaside and Seaside Evo classes and Virgin Voyages’ cruise ships. But for NCL, Norwegian Prima is the first of a new class of cruise ships and NCL’s first new class of cruise ships since the Breakaway class was introduced a decade ago. NORWEGIAN PRIMA BUILT Fincantieri, Marghera, Italy; yard no.6298 LAID DOWN 9.12.2019, launched 13.8.2021, completed 29.7.2022 TONNAGE 143,535gt DIMENSIONS 299m (981ft) x 40.5m (132ft 10in) (waterline), 51m (167ft 4in) (max); draught 8.7m (28ft 7in) INSTALLED POWER Diesel-electric; twin ABB Azipods, each 16.5MW CAPACITY 3,099 (double occupancy) TOTAL CABINS 1,646: owner suites/De Luxe owner suites 6; Courtyard Penthouse 58; suites 43; balcony 1,030;…

CRUISE SHIP SALE Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines picked up two awards in over the winter, but then announced plans to sell the smallest ship of their present fleet of four vessels, the 1993-built, 24,334gt Braemar, acquired in 2001. Before entering service with Olsen, the vessel was cut in two by Blohm + Voss at Germany’s Elbe Dry Dock 17 for insertion of a 31.2m mid-body section constructed in Bremerhaven by Seebeckwerft, which boosted passenger totals from 820 to 929 in a total of 484 cabins with larger storage areas installed to extend her range. Braemar’s debut cruise left Dover in August 2001, but she was a victim of Covid and has remained laid up in Rosyth since 2019. The Fred. Olsen’s successes came in the British Travel Awards as best…

COASTERS Changes have been made to the fleet of Cardiff-based ship operator Charles M. Willie. Leaving the fleet in November 2022 was the 4,123 dwt coaster Celtic Warrior. Completed as Thule in 1996, she joined Willie’s fleet in late 2014, having been acquired from German owners, and was handed over to Latvian interests, while she was alongside at Rotterdam, in mid-November. Joining the fleet is the 4,891dwt, 2009-built IJsseldijk, renamed Celtic Challenger, which was handed over while she was in dry dock at Sharpness during November 2022. Built in India, to Conoship’s popular 4450 MPV design, the 90m coaster was operating under the Antigua & Barbuda flag. Founded in 1938, Charle M. Willie & Co currently operate a fleet of short-sea traders, made up of 15 units, ranging in size…

NEW PCTC UECC unveiled its newbuild greenpowered pure car and truck carrier Auto Achieve for clients and guests at Gothenburg in November 2022. The event saw her being officially named, with champagne being broken over the ship’s bow. Auto Achieve, delivered earlier in 2022 from China’s Jiangnan Shipyard, was the second of a trio of newbuild multi-fuel LNG battery hybrid PCTCs, but her naming came after the christenings in October of her sister vessels, Auto Advance (35,667gt) and Auto Aspire (35,660gt), at Zeebrugge. Auto Aspire was the third and most recent of this series. Among 160 attendees at the Gothenburg ceremony were UECC customers and staff, owners, suppliers, partners and representatives of UECC’s owners, NYK and Wallenius Lines. The Portugal-flagged vessel was officially named by Godmother Tina Thörner, a world…

CONTAINER SHIPS Mitsui OSK Lines’ container ship ONE Trust arrived in Southampton on 19 November 2022 fitted with a new bow wind deflector, which is expected to reduce fuel consumption by two to four per cent, depending upon weather conditions. Built by Samsung Heavy Industries in 2017, the ship was launched as MOL Trust with a capacity of 20,170TEU, one the world’s largest capacity container ships at the time. The Japanese company has experimented with this kind of structure on one of its smaller ships, the 6,724TEU MOL Marvel, in 2015, before installing the device on the larger ONE Trust at the Qingdao Beihai Shipyard in China. The next vessel to have a wind deflector fitted is ONE Tradition (ex-MOL Tradition), and deflectors are to be fitted to a series…

CONTAINER SHIPS Ellerman City Liners opened its new Iberia North Europe Express (iNEX) service in early November 2022. The inaugural voyage from Cadiz was made on 3 November by the 812TEU capacity feeder container ship Kristin Schepers. From the Spanish port, the service calls at Setúbal, Aveiro, Teesport, Tilbury and Rotterdam. The Essex-based company, owned by UniOcean Lines (and part of the Uniserve Group), began operations in 2021, with its GB Express service linking Tilbury with ports in China and Vietnam. In late November the company announced its intention to open a transatlantic service, calling at Antwerp, Rotterdam, Tilbury, New York, Wilmington and Jacksonville. WATERFRONT • www.shipsmonthly.com • The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent, ME18 6AL • t > 01959 541444 • e > sm.ed@kelsey.co.uk…

INDUSTRY NEWS There were numerous new ship christenings during the autumn of 2022, with some being performed in unusual locations. Celebrity Cruises’ latest ship, Celebrity Beyond, was named on 4 November in Port Everglades by the American gymnast and Olympic medallist Simone Biles. The long-awaited first vessel for the Ritz Carlton Yacht Collection, Evrima, was named on 5 November in Lisbon by the children of executives of the Yacht Collection and Marriott International. On 8 November, outside the Havila offices in Fosnavag, Norway, Havila Capella was finally christened, almost a year after first entering service. Board member Hege Sævik Rabben served as godmother, christening the ship with water from Geirangerfjord. A week later, sister ship Havila Castor was named by Aurora Saevik in a ceremony in Ålesund, Norway. Atlas Ocean…

FRENCH NAVY The first defence and intervention (FDI) frigate for the French Navy has been ‘launched’, with Amiral Ronarc’h (D660) being moved out of a covered construction dock to a fitting-out pier at the Naval Group shipyard in Lorient. The ship’s mainmast, called the Panoramic Sensors and Intelligence Module, and containing the Central Operation, Sea Fire radar and Identification Friend or Foe system, was subsequently added to complete the superstructure fabrication. Sea trials are scheduled to begin in 2023, with delivery a year later. The remaining four Marine Nationale ships will not be delivered until 2030, as their building slots have been allocated to three export versions for the Hellenic Navy. The FDI is touted as the world’s first 100 per cent digital and cybersecure multi-role combat frigate. This has…

ROYAL FLEET AUX The Ministry of Defence has selected Team Resolute as the preferred bidder to build three Fleet Solid Support vessels for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. The consortium, comprising BMT, Harland & Wolff and Navantia UK, will be awarded a £1.6 billion contract (before inflation) to manufacture the vessels in early 2023, subject to final approval. Each vessel will be 216m long and 34.5m wide, with 9,000m2 of storage space for ammunition, spare parts and other supplies, to sustain a deployed Carrier Strike Group. The flight deck will be capable of operating all types of helicopter flown by the UK’s armed forces, with a hangar large enough to accommodate two Royal Navy Merlins, with additional space for drones and unmanned systems. The ships will require a crew of just…

CONTAINER SHIPS China’s COSCO Shipping Holdings has ordered a dozen 24,000TEU dual-fuel container ships, five to be built by Dalian Cosco KHI Ship Engineering and seven by Nantong Cosco KHI Ship Engineering, both firms being joint ventures associated with Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries. To cost just under $2.9 billion ‘en bloc’, the vessels will be capable of using green methanol as fuel and will be delivered between the third quarter of 2026 and the third quarter of 2028, five for operation by Beijing-headquartered COSCO Shipping Line and seven for service with Hong Kong-based Orient Overseas International Limited. All 12 vessels will integrate a number of energy-saving and emissionreduction technologies while adding 288,000TEUs of capacity to the overall COSCO fleet, which currently consists of over 465 vessels.…

NEWBUILD The Panama incorporated Mi-Das Line, the main shipowning entity of Japan’s Doun Kisen group, has placed the 66,337dwt bulk carrier Jal Kalpavriksh in service following her completion by the Tamano yard of Mitsui E&S Shipbuilding. The 200m by 36m vessel is powered by a Mitsui-MAN B&W 7S50ME-C9.7 main engine giving a service speed of 14.5 knots and is equipped with four deck cranes serving five cargo holds with a total capacity of 82,600m3. In addition, the size of hatch opening on the vessel is the largest for this type of ship in terms of both length and width. Accommodation has been provided for a crew of 25.…

NEW TANKERS Oil major Shell is chartering a number of dual-fuel Aframax tankers through its Singapore office from Chinese owners for worldwide trading. Among these is the 109,999dwt Proteus Jessica, one of several vessels recently completed by China’s Shanghai Waigaoqiao shipyard. The new tankers, some also being built by China’s Guangzhou Shipbuilding, measure 250m by 44m and have a capacity of 850,000 barrels of crude while sailing on a designed draught of 13.5m. LNG fuel for their WinGD low pressure dual-fuel main engines is carried in two independent Type ‘C’ tanks mounted on deck forward of the superstructure to give a range of 14,000 nautical miles at a speed of 14.5 knots. WATERFRONT • www.shipsmonthly.com • The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent, ME18 6AL • t > 01959…

Waverley’s 2022 season ended on a high on 16 October with a sailing from Glasgow to Tighnabruaich and the Bute coast. Over 900 passengers stepped aboard during the day to have one last cruise before winter. During the season over 100,000 passenger journeys were recorded from 28 May to 16 October, the most since 2016. For the first time since 2018, Waverley gave supporters beyond the Firth of Clyde the chance to travel on her, with trips from Oban to Skye, as well as along the South Coast and the Thames, as this selection of photos shows. Among the many highlights were the 75th Anniversary sailing to Arrochar returning to Ayr, trips out of Poole and Southwold for the first time in many seasons, evening sunset cruises, weddings on board,…

SHIPS MAIL A great square-rigger Further to the great square-rigger Preussen and her loss (SM, Sept 2022), with Peking now back in her home port of Hamburg, perhaps it is opportune to mention another of the Flying P sailing ships, the great Preussen. A five-masted full-rigged ship, 482ft overall, with square sails on all masts, she was one of the fastest sailing ships, matching the clippers with speeds of up to 20 knots. Built by Joh. C. Tecklenborg at Geestemünde in Germany, she was launched in May 1902 with her hull, masts, spars and rigging, both cable and rods, all being of steel. She proved to be a weatherly ship, sailing to, among other destinations, Chile, Japan and New York, where most of New York turned out to welcome her.…