Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i Ships Monthly

QUEEN MARY The Clyde steam vessel Queen Mary, which was built by Dennys at Dumbarton in 1933 and is undergoing restoration at the Pacific Quay in Glasgow, has received an anonymous donation of £1 million, which brings fund-raising to £4.8 million towards a total cost of £10 million. She sailed as Queen Mary II from 1935 to 1976, being operated by Williamson-Buchanan Steamers and from 1943 to 1973 by Caledonian Steam Packet Company. The Queen Mary name was reinstated in 1976, having originally released the name for the famous three-funnelled Cunard liner, and the vessel has been in Glasgow since 2016. RP…

NEW CON-ROS Italy’s Grimaldi Group has taken delivery of the 45,684dwt Great Antwerp from South Korea’s Hyundai Mipo Dockyard Co as the first of its six new G5 con-ros commissioned from the Korean company just over two years ago. Measuring 250m by 38m, the G5 class is an evolution of the earlier G4 series of ro-ro multipurpose vessels built by Hyundai Mipo for Grimaldi in 2014 and 2015. The newer ships are able to transport 4,700 lane metres of rolling stock, 2,500 car equivalent units and 2,000TEUs, and thus have the same capacity for rolling stock as the G4s but double the container capacity. Both the main engine and the auxiliary diesel generators, which are equipped with hybrid exhaust gas cleaning systems, meet Tier III regulations, and the vessel can…

LPG CARRIER China’s Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai has delivered the 230m by 36.6m gas tanker Harzand to Singapore-based Petredec as the world’s largest dual-fuel LPG carrier. The 54,634gt ship, which has a capacity of 93,000m3, is the first of six sisterships to be built for the Singapore company, all to make use of an optimised hull design developed by Jiangnan that incorporatesanewbow shape and energy-saving rudder device to improve efficiency. A speed of 16.5 knots with a fuel range of 23,000 nautical miles is provided by MAN ES LGIP engines operated in conjunction with shaft generators to provide auxiliary power at sea. JS…

FIRTH OF FORTH Up to April the Forth had hosted seven cruise ships spread across all four arrivals points, and an additional 22 called during May. This is the highest number ever recorded for the opening months of the cruise season. The only ship scheduled to call but which did not was Renaissance (ex-Holland America’s Maasdam), operated by the French company Compagnie Française de Croisières (CFC), as the ship was still laid up in Brest. The number of visitors is three times that for April and May 2020. The April list included two vessels new to the Forth: Otto Sverdrup, of the Hurtigruten Expedition Fleet, and the larger 2008-built AIDAbella, with a capacity of 2,500. The 2002-built Otto Sverdrup, formerly Finnmarken, was renamed in 2021 and transferred from the coastal…

ISLE OF MAN The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company’s new £78 million vessel, Manxman, was officially handed over to company chairman Lars Ugland at the Hyundai Mipo Dockyard at Ulsan in South Korea on 10 May following a naming ceremony. Manxman then set off on a 30-day delivery voyage to Britain under the command of Captain Andy Atkinson and with Dean Ellis as chief engineer. Manxman’s journey via the Suez Canal was due to end with a stop in Southern England for what are described as ‘final fittings’ for the vessel, which was designed by naval architects Houlder to carry 949 passengers. Her length has been kept to 133m to enable the 14,000gt Manxman to use the mainland port of Heysham. She will offer three-and-a-half-hour crossings from island…

CONDOR FERRIES The 13,906gt ro-pax vessel Straitsman, delivered from the Netherlands in 2005 and previously linking the North and South Islands of New Zealand, will enter service between Poole and the Channel Islands towards the end of the year after being renamed Condor Islander by Condor Ferries. Following a seven-week delivery voyage across the Pacific and through the Panama Canal, she will be modified with onboard alterations, including the creation of a Duty Free shop. Condor chief executive John Napton said: ‘We wanted a name that reflects we have been part of Channel Islands life for three quarters of a century and one that also resonates with visitors.’ Condor Islander will carry 400 passengers and offer 1,121 lane metres of vehicle space, and will join a fleet that includes the…

BRITTANY FERRIES Two in every five passengers carried on Brittany Ferries’ extensive route network use the English Channel service linking Portsmouth with the French port of Caen, which itself will receive a major boost in May next year with the introduction of the company’s fifth new vessel since 2020. As reported last month, the latest in the E-Flexer series of ships built in China will be named Guillaume de Normandie in honour of the man buried in Caen who is best remembered as William the Conqueror. Guillaume de Normandie is the 12th in the E-Flexer series. The eleventh, Saint-Malo, is due to be delivered in October for the Portsmouth-Saint Malo route, and both at 30,000gt are slightly smaller than previous units in the series and will take 1,310 passengers. They…

CAPTAIN COOK Fiji Islands-based Captain Cook Cruises has acquired the 114-passenger Caledonian Sky on long-term charter as a replacement for its 73m by 14m Reef Endeavour, built in 1996. Previously operated by Melbourne-based Australian Pacific Touring, Caledonian Sky was built by Nuovi Cantieri Apuania at Marina di Carrarra, Italy in 1991 as Renaissance Cruises’ Renaissance VI, but she has since been operated by Noble Caledonia, Star Cruises and Sun Cruises. At 4,200gt, she is slightly larger than the ship that she replaces, although carrying fewer passengers. Reef Endeavour (3,125gt) carries 130 passengers compared with 114 on Caledonian Sky. Captain Cook Cruises plans to deploy the ship on three-to 11-night cruises out of Suva to the Yasawa Islands, the Lau Islands and the Mamanuca Islands.…

ROYAL THAI NAVY The Royal Thai Navy’s new Type 071E landing platform dock (LPD), HTMS Chang (792), was commissioned at the Sattahip Naval Base on 25 April, just a week after her delivery from Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding’s facility in Shanghai. The ship was delivered without radar or weapons systems. The versatile design has twin hangars, a flight deck large enough for the simultaneous operation of three medium-size helicopters, two vehicle garage decks and a stern dock. The RTN claims the LPD can land up to 600 troops and their equipment by means of eight Amphibious Vehicles (AAVs), six Landing Craft (LCM), nine Landing Craft Vehicle Personnel (LCVP), or two air-cushioned vehicles (LCAC). Although the her name translates as ‘elephant’, the ship’s name, like that of other amphibious vessels and auxiliaries, was…

JAPANESE MSDF The Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Force is to truncate its procurement of Mogami class frigates for an improved design. The plan to build 22 ships will stop at 12, to be followed by ten modified variants, known as ‘new class FFM’. They will incorporate the latest advances in technology, feature better equipment, enable even leaner crewing, and address some design flaws discovered during operations with the early Mogamis. The Ministry of Defence’s Acquisition, Technology, & Logistics Agency (ATLA) has invited proposals from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) and Japan Marine United (JMU) to modify the design and construct the new ships from 2024 on. The JMSDF is shifting its focus away from destroyers to frigates as primary combatants, as they are simpler to operate with smaller crews. The Mogami class…

CARGO SHIPS Through a combination of an ambitious newbuilding programme and aggressive purchasing in the sale and purchase market, Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) has surpassed the five million TEU slot capacity mark, claiming around 18 per cent of on-water container ship capacity. Taking the largest container operator title early last year from Maersk, the company has continued to increase its capacity. The company has several newbuilds, including two series of ultra-large container ships, the largest container ships in service, led by the 24,232TEU MSC Irina, which entered service in March. Since 2020 MSC has bought over 300 container ships in preparation for January 2025, when it will split from its 2M partnership with Maersk. The scale of MSC’s growth has seen it go from a slot capacity of 2.2 million…

HMS CAROLINE HRH The Princess Royal officially reopened HMS Caroline in Belfast on 25 April. As Patron of the National Museum of the Royal Navy, she viewed the extensive restoration which has been undertaken on this World War I ship. Built in 1914, HMS Caroline is the last surviving warship from the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Brought to Belfast in 1924, she has been in the city for almost 100 years. She was finally decommissioned in 2011 with the distinction of being the second-longest-serving ship in navy history. Caroline has undergone major restoration through funding from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Northern Ireland Department for the Economy.…

GLENLEE The Tall Ship Glenlee has been awarded £1.8 million in funding from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) through its Covid-19 Response Fund, keeping the icon of the River Clyde afloat and securing her future. The funding grant comes as the 126-year-old vessel celebrates 30 years back in Glasgow and will support essential inspections and repairs to the hull, decks and rigging of the ship over the next two years. Initial work will be carried out this year within the cargo hold and around the foremast step, the poop deck and the bowsprit. The chartroom is being refreshed with support from other Museums.…

One of Holyhead’s most popular ships was the 11,690gt St Columba. She could carry up to 1,700 passengers and 335 cars, and sailed twice-daily to Dun Laoghaire. She was completedatDenmark’s Aalborg Yard in April 1977 and was renamed Stena Hibernia in 1990, with a major £800,000 internal refit being completed the following year at Lloyd Werft in Bremerhaven.Six years later, a plan to operate her from Dover as Stena Adventurer fell through and instead she was moved to Greece for a time, being renamed Express Aphrodite for Hellas Ferries, before Red Sea sailings as Masarrah for Nanna Shipping. She was still powered by her original twin Werkspoor diesel engines. Finally, late in 2021, the vessel arrived at Pakistan’s Gadani Shipbreaking Yard, flying the flag of Gabon.…

On 16 March actress and singer Nicole Scherzinger formally named P&O Cruises’ new cruise ship Arvia, the company’s new flagship, at a beachside ceremony in Barbados, which also featured British musician Ed Sheeran. Arvia (Yard no S716), which means ‘from the seashore’, was laid down on 15 February 2022. She is the second Excellence class ship and follows near sister Iona, being completed at the Meyer Werft shipyard, Papenburg, Germany. The ship was floated out of Meyer’s Building Dock No.2 on 27 August 2022, and completed at the outfitting quay before a stern-first Ems passage, followed by finishing works at Eemshaven, trials in the North Sea, and a formal handover at Bremerhaven on 15 December 2022. The original maiden voyage scheduled for December 2022 was cancelled and the ship sailed…

The German Navy’s frontline warships are supplemented by an array of minor warfighting vessels and auxiliaries. Prominent among these are the ten remaining units of the circa 650-tonne Type 332 Frankenthal class of mine countermeasures vessels, survivors of a 22-strong programme of mine warfare ships that started to commission as the Cold War was coming to an end. Built of non-magnetic steel, ships of the class are equipped with drones for minehunting and can operate as minelayers if required. The largest and most impressive units in the navy’s inventory are the three 20,000-tonne Type 702 Berlin class replenishment tankers, which are known as task force supply ships in German circles. The first two ships were delivered between 2001 and 2002 and were followed by the modified Bonn in 2013. The…

The ships on the Turku-Åland-Stockholm route have a tight timetable, while the passage can also be challenging, with three archipelagos to negotiate. Silja Line and Viking Line operate four ships on the busy route, and their vessels have a turnaround time of just 60-70 minutes at the main ports, during which passengers and vehicles disembark and the next load embarks, and they spend just 15 minutes in Åland. Two crossings a day throughout the year are maintained. Viking Line have been operating their latest ship, Viking Glory, in tandem with Viking Grace since 1 March 2022, when the former was introduced, having been built in China. Viking Grace, constructed at STX Europe Turku Shipyard, was delivered on 10 January 2013, and entered service three days later, becoming the first large…

FRED. OLSEN’S BALMORAL Now into a 16th year with Fred. Olsen, the 1988-built Balmoral has become one of the most popular vessels cruising from Britain. Russell Plummer looks back over the ship’s career, starting with her delivery from Meyer Werft 35 years ago. PLUS OSCAR WILDE • On board Oscar Wilde, formerly Star, the latest addition to the Irish Ferries’ fleet, which has recently entered service on the Irish Sea. HMS ALBION • Neil McCart recounts two eventful years in the career of HMS Albion in the early 1960s, after she had been converted from an aircraft carrier to a commando carrier. SAMSKIP • Since 1990 Samskip, founded in Iceland, has extended its network in 35 countries and is now one of the leading operators in the European short-sea trades. WEAPONSCLASS…

PRESERVATION The historic two-funnelled ship Bore, completed by Sweden’s Oskarshamnsvarvet in 1960 and operated between 1988 and 2010 as the cruise ship Kristina Regina, was drydocked this summer for maintenance before being returned to her berth as a combination museum and hostel at Turku, Finland. The 4,395grt vessel was the last commercial steamship built in Scandinavia and the first ferry on the route between Finland and Sweden where cars could be driven aboard through a side port, when she was operated by the Bore Steamship Co in the 1960s and 1970s. The ship is now owned by Oy S/S Borea Ab and offers hotel accommodation while also hosting a historical exhibition by Forum Marinum using the vessel’s preserved navigation bridge, officer’s quarters and owner’s suite. Recently the ship has also…

ROYAL FLEET AUX RFA Fort Victoria faces an uncertain future, despite undergoing a refit in May 2022 following her return in December 2021 from a CSG21 deployment with the HMS Queen Elizabeth strike group. Some significant defects which have not been resolved are believed to include the compressors. With the ship entering a fourth decade of service, spares are more difficult to procure and the alternatives are either very expensive bespoke replacements or refurbished parts. With replacement Fleet Solid Support ships only ordered in January, the RFA will be either forced to spend very significant funds on new equipment for a vessel that may only be in service for another few years or to scrap her. In light of escalating RFA personnel shortages, opting to lay up a ship that…

NCL Norwegian Cruise Line has recently announced the cancellation of an entire season’s cruises for two ships. The first was Norwegian Spirit, which was scheduled for summer cruises from Alaska between 3 July 2024 and 18 September 2024. The company is citing a full ship charter as the reason for cancelling almost all of the ship’s Alaska season. Another major cancellation is that of Norwegian Epic’s Mediterranean itineraries from 1 December 2023 until 9 April 2024, after which she will resume cruises in the Mediterranean. No reason has been given for the change, but the most likely explanation might be low bookings, meaning that the ship can generate more revenue by moving elsewhere. Norwegian Prima’s 14 May transatlantic sailing from New York was disrupted by bad weather causing the loss…

MSC CRUISES Although she is still two years away from making her first cruise, MSC Cruises is already taking bookings for its 6,762-passenger MSC World America, due to be completed by Chantiers de l’Atlantique of France in 2025. The new ship will be MSC’s third LNG-powered vessel, following last year’s MSC World Europa and the soon-to-be-delivered Meraviglia Plus-class MSC Euribia, and will be followed by a sister ship in 2027. To safely berth the 333.3m by 47m vessel at Miami, MSC is building a new $450 million terminal capable of handling up to 36,000 passengers per day, which is expected to become the largest in North America when finished towards the end of this year. Once in service, the 215,860gt MSC World America will offer two distinct, seven-night itineraries from…

OCEANIA CRUISES The latest addition to the Oceania fleet, Vista, made her debut in May. She is the first of the Allura class, and was one of two 1,200-passenger 67,871gt ships ordered from Fincantieri in January 2019. The second of the ships, to be named Allura, is set to be delivered in 2025. These are the third and fourth new ships for Oceania, which has previously operated second-hand ships, such as the 1998-built Insignia (ex-R One) and the 1999-built Sirena (ex-R Four, Ocean Princess). Oceania’s newest ship was named in the Maltese port of Valletta on 9 May, marking the debut of the line’s first newbuild in over a decade and, coincidentally, on the 20th anniversary of Oceania’s founding. Since 2002, the line has gradually expanded, focussing on operating smaller…

US NAVY The US Navy has contracted Austal USA for the detailed design of a new class of ocean surveillance ship. The USN has a requirement for seven Auxiliary General Ocean Surveillance (T-AGOS) ships, worth a combined US$3.1 billion. T-AGOS are Small Waterplane Area Twin Hull (SWATH) vessels designed to provide a stable platform in high seas for anti-submarine acoustic passive and active surveillance using Towed-Array Sensor System equipment. They are operated by the US Military Sealift Command. The five currently in service are all based in Japan. Primarily known for their aluminium shipbuilding, such as the Independence-variant Littoral Combat Ships and Spearhead class Fast Transports, Austal USA also has a number of steel programmes under way. These include the construction of 11 Heritage class Offshore Patrol Cutters for the…

CONTAINER SHIP Taiwan-based Wan Hai Lines has taken delivery of the 122,045gt Wan Hai A10 from Samsung Heavy Industries as the fourth of 13 13,100TEU ships it has ordered from the South Korean builder. The 335m by 51m vessels have a maximum cruising speed of 22 knots and are equipped with fully balanced twisted bulb rudders, along with pre-swirl fins, to help meet the highest level of requirement for EEDI (Energy Efficiency Design Index), and all are certified with ‘Smart Ship’ notations covering onboard maintenance and management. Along with several of her sisterships, Wan Hai A10 will be deployed on Wah Hai’s Asia to East Coast of North America service, where Philadelphia has been added to the rotation. JS…

ROSS REVENGE Ross Revenge, the former deepsea trawler which later found fame as Radio Caroline, is the subject of a crowd-funding campaign to raise £125,000, to add to the £57,000 already raised, to provide partnership funding for a Heritage Lottery application for the finances necessary to drydock her and carry out repairs to her hull and superstructure to ensure the vessel’s longer term survival. Built in 1960 in Bremerhaven, she was based at Grimsby for most of her fishing career, during which she was also involved in the Cod Wars. As the UK fishing fleet declined, she served briefly as a diving support ship before being sold for scrap in 1983. But she was rescued and started a new career broadcasting pop music as a pirate radio station anchored in…

SHIELDHALL Southampton’s heritage steamship Shieldhall returned from her annual dry-docking in Falmouth looking pristine ahead of her first 2023 sailing on 16 June. The new electric blue silicone coating, which is more environmentally friendly than traditional anti-foul, was initially applied in 2022 and was reapplied in certain areas in Falmouth. This anti-foul has already proved its worth, with less marine growth attaching itself to the hull. The MCA survey required some unexpected additional costs of more than £50,000, which included new steel hull plating in several areas, but overall confirmed that Shieldhall is in satisfactory condition. WATERFRONT • www.shipsmonthly.com • The Granary, Downs Court, Yalding Hill, Yalding, Kent, ME18 6AL • t > 01959 541444 • e > sm.ed@kelsey.co.uk…

EL GALEON El Galeon visited Weymouth and Southend in May and visitors were welcomed aboard to look round the ship. Launched in 2009 in Spain, she was designed as a full-size replica of a 17th-century Spanish galleon, combining modern and traditional shipbuilding techniques, incorporating a basic fibreglass hull lined inside and out, except below the waterline, with wooden boards of iroko, pine and beech. The masts are of laminated pine and the blocks for raising the sails of oak and iroko. Galleons were developed as armed trading ships up to 60m in length and able to carry 1,200 tons of cargo on extended voyages. They carried up to 150 people, including officers, crew, merchants, servants and families.…

Britain’s railway regions lost control of ferry operations from January 1968, when a Shipping and International Services division was formed and, continuing until another change in 1979 as Sealink UK, a name in use through the 1970s, was brought in for a company wholly owned by the British Railways board. This continued until 1984, when the government sold Sealink UK for £68 million to Bermuda-based Sea Containers, a company headed by the charismatic James Sherwood. However, few of the extensive plans he announced for what became Sealink British Ferries actually saw the light of day. In another sale on 31 May 1990, Sweden’s Stena Line paid £259 million for the operation and, although very different from earlier times, the results for Holyhead have been impressive, with the company investing heavily…

The Levant refers to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia, notably the historical region of Syria (Greater Syria), which includes present-day Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and most of Turkey south-west of the middle Euphrates. In its widest historical sense, the Levant includes all of the Eastern Mediterranean with its islands, in other words all the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, from Greece to Cyrenaica in eastern Libya. The term entered English in the late 15th century, deriving from the Italian word ‘levante’, meaning ‘rising’, implying the rising of the sun in the east. British shipping lines serving the Levant included Cunard Steamship Co, Prince Line and, from 1971, Manchester Liners. The latter two were part of the Furness, Withy Group, which was sold…

WHERE ARE YOU FROM? I was born and raised on Houtskär, a small island in the Turku archipelago (population 621). It is a seafarers’ island, but my family were farmers. I was attracted by the sea and the prospect of plenty of free time when not working so I could still live there. We live in Turku now, but have a place on Houtskär. HOW DID YOUR CAREER DEVELOP? I was deckhand on Engship Co’s Svanö, aged 19. After a few years I enrolled at the Mariehamn Maritime Academy for four years, becoming an AB seaman, Deck Officer from 1996 to 1998, and then Master in 2001. I was AB on several ro-ro and dry cargo ships, as the main export from Finland was paper, which we moved to the…

Texas is considered America’s second largest state, after Alaska, and its Port of Houston, by virtue of many petrochemical plants and oil refineries, is the leading US port in terms of total waterborne tonnage, handling approximately 275 million tons of cargo annually. At the same time, the Port of Galveston, located at the head of the 52-mile-long Houston Ship Canal, is ranked as America’s fourth busiest cruise port, trailing only the three Florida ports of Miami, Port Canaveral and Port Everglades, and handles around 350 cruise ship calls and over a million passengers annually. The Ship Canal itself, completed in the same year as the Panama Canal, is considered the busiest waterway in America and sees an average of 50 deepsea vessel movements and 360 tug and barge transits daily.…

The mystery ship is the turbine steamer Riviera, which was built in 1911 by Denny of Dumbarton for the South Eastern and Chatham Railway and operated out of Dover and Folkestone. She and sistership Engadine were the first vessels to have decks built to carry motor cars. Both ships were used as seaplane carriers during World War I. Riviera was sold in 1932 to the Clydeside Steamship Co (J.B. Couper) but immediately resold to Burns and Laird. She operated on the Ardrossan to Belfast service until 1957 and was broken up at Troon. During her war service 1939-46 she served with the Dover Patrol. In the background above the ensign can be seen the white cliffs of Dover, indicating she is heading for Calais. The all-black funnels were used from…

TECHNOLOGY Turkey’s RMK Shipyard has been contracted to build the 136m-long sail-equipped Neoliner for Nantes-headquartered Neoline Armateur. Designed for transatlantic service, the ro-ro vessel will have a cargo-carrying capacity of 5,300 tonnes, equuivalent to 265 containers or 321 vehicles, and will have accommodation for 12 passengers. Propulsion will be provided by two tiltable Solidsails of 3,000m2 area to be supplied by Chantiers de l’Atlantique. The collapsible sails, expected to be the ship’s main propulsion, will be supplemented by an auxiliary engine and generators. To gain optimal winds, the ship will be equipped with a navigation and sailing control system, as well as ‘smart sensors’ to determine the best navigation route. JS…

HIGH SPEED FERRY The high-speed craft (HSC) Gotlandia II was sold to new Greek owners Golden Star Ferries in March and renamed Golden Princess after her long voyage from Sweden, where she had been working for Destination Gotland since 2006. The vessel operated from mainland Swedish east coast ports Nynäshamn and Oskarshamn to the Gotland capital Visby. At 6,554gt and 122m in length, Golden Princess is seen as an ideal addition to the GSF fleet, which is currently made up of three catamarans and three ferries. She was purchased for a reported €7.2 million. GSF operates from the west coast port of Rafina to the Cyclades islands of Andros, Mykonos, Tinos, Naxos, Santorini, Ios and Paros. The new acquisition will be homeported in Andros, and it is planned that she…

MARINE SPACEPORT The former offshore support vessel (OSV) C Challenger, built in 2003 and formerly operated by Louisiana-based Edison Chouest Offshore, is being converted in the US into the world’s first marine spaceport for human space flights. The flights, using a high-altitude balloon coupled with a pressurised passenger capsule called ‘Spaceship Neptune’, are to be operated by Space Perspective, based at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and will feature launches from both the Space Center and from the OSV, to be renamed MS Voyager. The ship will take passengers to an offshore location, where the balloon will fill with hydrogen and lift the capsule and its passengers 20 miles above the Earth for a six-hour flight after which the capsule will splash down to be retrieved by MS Voyager.…

CAL MAC The beginning of Transport Scotland’s nine-month charter of Pentland Ferries catamaran Alfred (2019/12,995gt) for operation on Caledonian MacBrayne’s Clyde and Hebridean routes, due to have started on 18 April, was delayed when there were problems with Pentalina (2008/2,382gt), the vessel scheduled to stand in on Pentland Ferries’ own route from Gills Bay to St Margaret’s Hope in Orkney. Pentalina has been sent to Belfast for a refit but there was a delay in the vessel regaining her passenger and safety certificates due to problems discovered while she was in dry dock. She finally resumed sailings on 3 May, but just three days later grounded while making a final approach to St Margaret’s Hope, with smoke detected in the engine room (see SM, June, p.6). Three days after finally…

CARNIVAL On 27 May while sailing off the cost of South Carolina, Carnival Sunshine was hit by a large storm, which caused substantial flooding and internal damage. As the flood water spread through the ship some crew members were forced to leave their cabins. There were reports of minor injuries. Carnival Pride was the latest ship to receive the new Carnival livery, applied during her recent refit at the Navantia shipyard in Cadiz. She began her European summer season on 28 May with a sailing from Barcelona. Another ship undergoing work at the same yard was Costa Venezia, being readied for service under the banner ‘Carnival Fun, Costa Style’. She sailed on her first Carnival cruise on 29 May, leaving Barcelona to head for New York, where she will be…

US NAVY The US Navy is to get a new class of Expeditionary Medical Ships, their first dedicated healthcare vessels for 35 years. The first-of-class is to be named USNS Bethesda (EMS 1) after the US military’s national medical facility. The EMS design is based on Austal’s high-speed, low-draught Spearhead class Expeditionary Fast Transport catamaran. It is expected to be capable of at least 30 knots, with a range of 5,500 nautical miles at 24 knots. With a primary role as a forward-deployed platform, the Bethesda class will be able to provide medical assistance from triage to hospital level critical care, both at sea and close to shore, humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, non-combatant evacuation, and cover for special operations. They will be equipped with 124 hospital beds, four operating rooms,…

US NAVY USS George Washington (CVN-73) has been redelivered to the US Navy after six years of undergoing a mid-life refit at the Newport News Shipbuilding shipyard. The multi-billion dollar Refuelling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) is normally scheduled to last four years, but was extended by a range of factors, such as delays caused by Covid, the worse than expected material condition of the ship, and the removal of critical parts to support more serviceable aircraft carriers. The extended lay-off has been particularly tough for the crew, with nine sailors committing suicide, leading to a Department of Defense investigation into the quality of onboard living conditions. From 2008 to 2015 George Washington was the forward-deployed aircraft carrier in Japan, a task that she will resume once operational again, replacing…

TANKERS Three medium-range Stena tankers, the 49,750dwt triplets Stena Immaculate, Stena Imperative and Stena Impeccable, are to be reflagged as US-registered vessels sailing with American crews so that they can serve in the US government’s Tanker Security Program (TSP). The Chinese-built ships will be able to continue their commercial operations worldwide, but they will also be available to transport liquid fuel supplies for the US Department of Defense when needed. The tankers, all built in 2016-17, are part of a joint venture between Sweden’s Stena Bulk and Florida-based Crowley Maritime, with the latter company to manage the ships once they are operating under the US flag. JS…

REEFER BOXBOATS Dutch refrigerator ship operator Seatrade expects to take delivery of four 1,800 TEU container ships from China’s Huanghai Shipyard starting later this year, with each vessel to have around 1,300 reefer slots. Designed by the Ship Design and Research Institute, a China State Shipbuilding Corp subsidiary, the vessels will be completed to the institute’s Sealion 1800 BKK Class and each will have a reefer capacity that equates to approximately 13,000 pallets. The contract represents a departure for Groningen-based Seatrade, which has traditionally operated classic breakbulk refrigerator ships and a number of small box carriers, but none with more than 500TEU of reefer capacity. The new vessels will be operated according to Seatrade’s ‘fast, direct and dedicated’ (FDD) philosophy as an alternative to slower services offered by the container…

NEW DESIGN South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) debuted several new ship designs at the Samsung Technical Seminar recently held in Athens, Greece. Among them was the company’s new ‘Eco Container Ship’, which features a low-profile navigation bridge and, below it, the crew accommodation area, all contained in a streamlined structure forward of the vessel’s container slots. According to Samsung, such positioning allows the loading of approximately eight per cent more containers compared to a conventional configuration in which a line-of-sight must be kept from the midships-positioned navigation bridge, requiring a reduction in height of the container stacks forward. The new design can also be customised to allow the vessel to run on ammonia or hydrogen while also having space available for a carbon capture storage system. JS…

JOYCE Sixty years after being decommissioned by the Royal Navy, the 80-year-old Torpedo Recovery Vessel Joyce has returned home and been lowered back into the waters of Lough Neagh, near Belfast. During the war a torpedo test platform was built on the Lough, which still stands today. It allowed for testing the depth and directional accuracy of Mk.VIII torpedoes, which were built at a torpedo factory nearby on Randalstown Road in Antrim. Designed by the Admiralty and built by Percy M. See at Fareham in 1943-44, Joyce is of timber carvel construction with a Gardner 6LW diesel engine. She was designed and used as a recovery boat during test firing of torpedoes. After service in various bases including Devonport, she was sold in 1960 and remained under the same ownership…

First established in 1836 by a group of Dublin businessmen, British and Irish Line operated a fleet of paddle steamers from Dublin’s Eden Quay. However, it was not until 1982 that a new route from the Irish capital to Holyhead was proposed, when it was greeted by howls of protest from workers at the Anglesey port. B&I responded by using their first multi-purpose ferry, Munster, dating from 1968, to block access to their rival’s Irish base at Dun Laoghaire. The 4,007gt Munster had been ordered by Lion Ferry from the Nobiskrug Yard at Rendsburg, Germany, but was purchased before completion by B&I and, fitted with bow thrusters and stabilisers, made a service debut on seven-hour crossings between Dublin and Liverpool in 1968, taking 1,000 passengers and 22 cars. The Irish…

The German Navy has undergone many changes in recent years. Very much in the forefront of Cold War naval operations, the fleet suffered significantly from the ‘peace dividend’ that followed the Soviet Union’s collapse, shrinking to around a third of its former size. Considerable effort had also to be expended incorporating the former East German Volksmarine into its ranks during this time. This period of change was accompanied by a significant shift in overall mission focus. The newly renamed Deutsche Marine essentially switched its emphasis from east-west confrontation in neighbouring seas to supporting peacekeeping and humanitarian missions across the globe. This required quite a different type of navy than before. With recent Russian aggression changing the strategic environment again, the German Navy is facing a new set of challenges. The…

In May 1945, when she was anchored in Kiel Bay, the 1940-built Pompeji was seized by British forces as a war prize. Subsequently arriving at Grangemouth in November 1945, she was renamed Empire Blackwater, managed by P. Carrick & Co Ltd of London on behalf of the British Ministry of War Transport (MoWT). In March 1946, with an estimated value of $288,000, she was passed to the United States and laid up from October 1946 in the Hudson River, New York as part of the reserve fleet. In January 1947 she was sold for $216,000 to Seatrade Corporation of New York, which took delivery of the ship on 24 April 1947. Then, in June 1949, she was resold via J. Lauritzen to D/S Hetland A/S (Basse & Co) of Copenhagen…

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letter of the month So CalMac have chartered the catamaran Alfred from Pentland Ferries to bolster their flagging Western Isles services. However, now Pentland Ferries’ other vessel, Pentalina, fresh out of drydock, has run aground. Thankfully there were no reported injuries but with Alfred on duty elsewhere, and with the possibility that Pentalina could be out of service for some time, there are likely to be some disgruntled Pentland Ferry customers. It does seem that the long-standing problems with supporting the Scottish Isles are far from being resolved, and if Pentalina is out of service for an extended period, we could possibly see the bizarre situation where CalMac have chartered Alfred from PentlandFerrieswho, inturn, sub-charter it from CalMac. I have often worried about catamarans operating in areas exposed to extreme…