Elbe Express class
 The Elbe Express
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The ship class , built from 1968 to 1972 as the Elbe Express class , was a series of motor ships operated by the Hapag-Lloyd shipping company . These container ships of the first generation at the time the containerization of common North Atlantic liner service began shipping companies Hamburg-America Line and the North German Lloyd .
history
The series of this ship class consisted of a total of six units of two almost identical ship types from the Blohm + Voss shipyards in Hamburg and Bremer Vulkan in Bremen, which were put into service between 1968 and 1972. The first ship of the class was the Elbe Express , which was delivered on July 12, 1968 . In 1967, two ships each were ordered from the not yet merged shipping companies Hamburg-Amerika-Linie and Norddeutscher Lloyd. Starting on October 25 with the Weser Express , these four ships served the jointly established Europe-North America service of the joint venture Hapag-Lloyd-Containerlinie established for this purpose from 1968 . Another joint establishment was the Deutscher Containerdienst GmbH & Co. KG (DCD), which took over the control of the containers as well as the regulation of their arrival and departure. Two further ships of the same type were delivered to the Hamburg shipping company CF Ahrenkiel in 1971/72, which passed both ships on to the Hapag-Lloyd container line for a long-term charter to supplement the North Atlantic service. The four ships of the Hapag-Lloyd container line were transferred to their own stock in the 1970 merger between Hapag and Lloyd and were extended in 1973 at the Nordseewerke in Emden and the Lisnave shipyard in Lisbon, whereupon their capacity increased to around 1,100 TEU. In the mid-1980s, Hapag-Lloyd sold its four ships to the US shipping company Lykes Lines , which operated them until the second half of the 1990s and then sold them for demolition. The two Ahrenkiel ships were not extended and were only scrapped in 2005.
The ships
| The motorized cargo ships of the Elbe Express class | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building name | Shipyard / construction number |
IMO number | Launching / delivery |
Client | Renaming and whereabouts |
| Weser Express | Bremer Vulkan / 944 |
6821676 | June 28, 1968 / October 10, 1968 |
North German Lloyd | 1984 Charlotte Lykes , canceled from the P. Patel Shipbreaking Company in Alang on August 15, 1995 |
| Elbe Express | Blohm + Voss / 860 |
6823143 | July 12, 1968 / October 24, 1968 |
Hamburg-America Line | 1984 Margaret Lykes , broken off from Maycok Steel Corporation in Alang on July 13, 1995 |
| Moselle Express | Bremen volcano / 945 |
6903060 | November 6, 1968 / January 9, 1969 |
North German Lloyd | 1984 Adabelle Lykes , canceled from Kausar Enterprise in Alang on May 19, 1996 |
| Alster Express | Blohm + Voss / 861 |
6828612 | September 30, 1968 / January 16, 1969 |
Hamburg-America Line | 1984 Sheldon Lykes , canceled from Nicksons Exports in Alang on May 17, 1996 |
| Rhine Express | Blohm + Voss / 879 |
7116999 | July 31, 1971 / December 6, 1971 |
Ahrenkiel | 1973 Oriental Exporter , 1976 Rhein Express , 1981 Green Island , 1989 Long Hai He , canceled in China from January 1999 |
| Main Express | Blohm + Voss / 880 |
7126994 | December 11, 1971 / April 20, 1972 |
Ahrenkiel | 1973 Oriental Importer , 1976 Main Express , 1981 Ngan Chau , 1989 Xin Hai He , canceled in China in 2004 |
literature
- Prager, Hans Georg: Blohm + Voss . Ships and machines for the world. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1977, ISBN 3-7822-0127-2 .
- Witthöft, Hans Jürgen: HAPAG . Hamburg-America Line. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 1973, ISBN 3-7822-0087-X .
- Witthöft, Hans Jürgen: North German Lloyd . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 1973, ISBN 3-7822-0088-8 .