Caterpillar Marine - Marine Engines Caterpillar

ing container capacities with no change
in ship dimensions.
Further focal areas involved achieving
more safety and time savings, the
latter for instance via the simplification
of container lashing procedures with
lashing bridges for containerships with
capacities of 2,500 TEU upwards. The
foldable lashing frame with the hatchcover
was another idea developed with
support from Germanischer Lloyd.
A crucial year was 1988 with the
entry into service of the first containerships
that were wider than the
locks of the Panama Canal and thus
no longer able to use that key waterway.
This was the beginning of the era
of the so-called Post-Panamax carriers.
These vessels were built by HDW
in Kiel and Bremer Vulkan for American
President Lines (APL). They could carry
4,340 TEU. In that watershed year of
1988, the experts were also surprised
by the first containerships that with
greatly reduced wing structure width
could stow eleven instead of the hitherto
ten containers next to one another
in the hold and yet because of their
unchanged beam could still transit the
Panama Canal. The innovator was the
Danish shipping line Maersk, which had
these vessels (M class) built at its own
yard in Odense. Maersk, which via internal
growth and mergers became the
world‘s largest container line, greatly
contributed to the technical progress in
this sector.
While ship sizes had in the meantime
developed in a rather continuous way
without any spectacular highlights,
there were very different developments
as regards speed, which have
always been influenced by fuel price
levels. Thus, the vessels of the second
generation deployed in the Austral
service were faster than those serving
on the North Atlantic, and the first
Far East vessels with their 26/27 knots
were even faster. Speed was, of course,
a definite advantage, especially on long
routes. The US shipping line Seatrain,
which no longer exists today, deployed
Refrigerated containerships have a
considerable influence on conventional
reefer shipping.
vessels on the North Atlantic that with
gas turbine propulsion achieved 28
knots with a daily fuel consumption
of over 300t. The record was finally
achieved by Sea-Land, also based in the
USA and incidentally one of the pioneers
in this business, which offered a
speed of 33 knots with its eight 1,096
TEU containerships of the type SL-7
built in Germany and the Netherlands
that entered service from 1973. These
vessels with their two geared steam
turbines providing a propulsion output
of 120,000 hp were the fastest cargo
ships ever built. Their daily fuel consumption
was 600t at top speed. Certainly
an expensive proposition.
Then came the 1973 oil price shock,
when bunker costs skyrocketed. Shipping
lines had to „apply the brakes“.
The normal speed for newbuildings
declined to well under twenty knots.
The fast vessels commissioned in previous
years reduced their propulsion
performance, and Sea-Land, which
because of the high oil prices had run
„straight on to the rocks“, sold its ships
for certainly good prices to the US Navy.
Although speed has remained a talking
point, it was only from the mid-1990s
that the large newbuildings designed
for Europe-Far East or Pacific services
again reached 24-25 knots or even more
in some cases. However, the average
speed of all containerships remained
constant at about 19-20 knots.
It is worth mentioning the „open
top“ containership without hatchcovers
as an independent development, in
addition to the CONRO carriers (carrying
both containers and Ro-Ro cargo)
commissioned in those years. The first
large open top vessel was the 48,805 gt
„Nedlloyd Asia“ with 3,568 TEU capacity.
This no longer had a closed deck
except for the first three forward con-
In the spotlight
As containerships become ever larger, joint
services are developing in many trades.
tainer rows. The vessel without hatchcovers
is fitted with continuous cell
guides from the ship‘s bottom making
it possible to stow the containers in 13
layers on top of one another.
This type has indisputable advantages
but also drawbacks from the
technical point of view. It is certainly an
advantage that with the loading and
unloading of the containers it makes
unnecessary time-consuming lashing
work as well as uncovering and covering
of the hatches. On the other hand,
more time is required for transhipping
most containers, as each box has to be
raised right over the high cell guides.
The restricted tolerances of the containers
in the guide rails do not permit
any significant incline of the ship in
port. Moreover, a much higher pump
output is required to transfer over
board the increasing water volume
from rain or seaway resulting from the
open design. Another important point
is that because of their tonnage the
vessels also have to pay higher demurrage
charges in ports. Only a few ships
of this type have so far been put in
service, at least for overseas transport.
The situation seems to be different for
feeder services. Thus, the Hamburgbased
Sietas Shipyard has developed
an open-top type of which more than
fifty units have meanwhile been commissioned.
But to return to 1992. The particularly
noteworthy newbuildings at that time
included the „Hannover Express“ series,
ordered by Hapag-Lloyd from Samsung
Shipyard in South Korea. These 58,783
gt vessels had a length of 281.60m
and were thus probably the longest
containerships of their day. Their container
capacity reached 4,407 TEU and
thus roughly the Panamax optimum.
However, fully loaded they had to take
on considerable amounts of water ballast
of 10,000-15,000t in order to be
able to float upright. These volumes,
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