Rickmers christens four containerships

Rickmers Group has christened four ultra-large container ships (ULCS) of 13,100 teu capacity at Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) Ulsan shipyard.

Each of the four ships, Pearl Rickmers, Ruby Rickmers, Aqua Rickmers and Coconee Rickmers, has a service speed of 24.3 knots and have been chartered long-term to Maersk Line and will join Maersk’s “E-class” as Maersk Edinburgh, Maersk Emden, Maersk Eindhoven and Maersk Essen.

The ships will be delivered one by one during July and August 2010, and phase in to Maersk’s new joint service with CMA CGM linking Asia and North Europe. As Maersk’s AE8 service, it will deploy ten ships of this size, each partner contributing five. The port rotation will be:

Ningbo – Shanghai – Yantian - Tanjung Pelepas - Port Kelang - Le Havre - Hamburg – Rotterdam – Zeebrugge - Port Kelang – Singapore - Ningbo.

A further four sister ships are due for delivery to the Rickmers Group in 2011, also for charter to Maersk Line. All have been fixed for 10-year periods with further options.

According to the company, with volumes out of Asia starting to rise and rates holding, container lines’ confidence is growing. Given this scenario, the timing of the delivery of these Rickmers Group ships is looking much better than it might have done six to twelve months ago.

The eight vessels are ideally suited for the current market, which is demanding the largest possible ships in order to reduce the cost per container carried. Although built to operate at over 24 knots, the ships are equally capable of slow steaming.

Thee vessels will be capable of transiting the Panama Canal following completion of ongoing expansion work. Larger locks and dredging will open up an important additional trade lane for so-called New Panamax (NPX) container ships from Asia to the US East Coast.”

A company spokesman said that if it was possible to load all 13,100 teu onto a single train, it would be approximately 100km long and the locomotive would arrive in Kiel on the Baltic coast of Germany before the last railcar had left Rickmers’ home city of Hamburg.

The principal dimensions of the vessels are:

Length (oa): 366 m

Length (bp): 350 m

Beam: 48.2 m

Depth: 29.85 m

Design draft: 14.5 m

Scantling draft: 15.5 m

Deadweight: 125,480 mt at 14.5m

140,580 mt at 15.5m

Containers are carried 17-wide below deck and 19-wide on the hatchcovers. The maximum capacity of each ship is 7,074 teu on deck and 6,018 teu below deck, making 13,092 teu in total. Based on a homogeneous container weight of 14 tonnes per teu, the maximum capacity is approximately 9,080 teu. Reefer plugs are available for 800 x 40ft containers.
(Source:Container Management Magazine)