Kamakura Maru type
 The MSC Claudia at the end of her career
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
The four ships of the Kamakura-Maru type were a series of turbine ships operated by the shipping company Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) and Mitsui OSK Lines . In terms of shipbuilding, the four units represented a link between the second and third generation of container ships and were among the world's fastest ships of their kind at the time.
history
Used by NYK and Mitsui OSK
The series, built in Japan from 1970 to 1972, consisted of three units from the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyard in Kobe and one unit from the Nippon Kokan shipyard in Tsurumi.
The four ships were the Japanese contribution to the trio container service that began in the early 1970s. The TRIO consortium consisted of Hapag-Lloyd , Overseas Containers Limited (OCL - again consisting of Ocean Transport & Trading Ltd, the Blue Funnel Line , P & O , the British & Commonwealth Shipping Company and Furness, Withy & Co. ), Ben Line Containers ( Ben Line Steamers and Ellerman Lines ), Nippon Yusen Kaisha and Mitsui OSK Lines. With the TRIO service, these shipping companies set up a container liner service from Europe to Kobe, Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong via the Suez Canal or Cape Town and the Panama Canal . The service was seen as a pacemaker and market leader in the region.
The first ship of the type delivered was the Kamakura Maru , which was launched on March 31, 1971 and opened the TRIO container line service on December 31 of the same year.
As a result of the rising fuel prices after the 1973 oil crisis , the ships' propulsion systems were converted to two diesel engines each towards the end of the 1970s, whereby the exterior of the ships changed noticeably when the two chimneys at the front were replaced by a larger central chimney. The Kurama Maru was lengthened by around 28 meters during the renovation, which increased the container capacity to 2238 TEU.
Further career
The three NYK units Kamakura Maru , Kitano Maru and Kurama Maru remained in the service of the first shipping company until 1988/89, Rhine Maru even until 1995. After several sales and renaming, the Swiss shipping company Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) bought three of the ships from the mid-1990s on. After the former Kurama Maru was demolished in 1998, it is noteworthy that in the last few years of their careers all the remaining ships served together for just one shipping company. In the years 2003 to 2008, the MSC ships were finally scrapped.
The ships
| Container ships of the Kamakura Maru type | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building name | IMO number | Shipyard / construction number | Launched into service |
Shipping company | Renaming and whereabouts |
| Kamakura Maru | 7104673 | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries / 1023 | March 31, 1971 December 1971 |
NYK | Oceanus Osaka (1988) → MSC Claudia (1995) → from December 28, 2008 demolition in Alang |
| Kitano Maru | 7125392 | 887 / Nippon Kokan | November 1971 1972 |
NYK | Oceanus Tokyo (1988) → Neptune Aventurine (1993) → Oceanus Tokyo (1994) → ZIM Jamaica (1994) → MSC Pamela (1996) → from March 16, 2003 demolition in Alang |
| Kurama Maru | 7120512 | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries / 1024 | March 31, 1971 December 1971 |
NYK | Kurama (1989) → Aramac (1996) → from July 29, 1998, demolition in Chittagong |
| Rhine Maru | 7111999 | Mitsubishi Heavy Industries / 1025 | 1972 1972 |
Mitsui-OSK | Double Haven (1995) → Sea Dominance (1995) → MSC Sonia (1996) → Ansovy (December 1, 2007) → from December 27, 2007 demolition in Alang |
literature
- Witthöft, Hans Jürgen: Container . A box makes a revolution. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2000, ISBN 3-7822-0777-7 .
- Cudahy, Brian J .: Box boats . How container ships changed the world. Fordham University press, New York 2006, ISBN 0-8232-2568-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Equasis
- ↑ The Kurama at shipphotos.co.uk ( Memento of the original from May 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
