Mærsk A-Class (1975)
 The Maersk Barcelona
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The Mærsk A-Class or Adrian Mærsk- Class was a series of nine container ships built in the mid-1970s for the Danish shipping company AP Møller-Mærsk .
history
The series was ordered in the spring of 1973 by the Copenhagen-based shipping company Maersk Line . Six units were built at the Blohm + Voss shipyard in Hamburg , for which this order of over 500 million marks was the largest in its history to date. Another three units were built by the Flender works in Lübeck. The construction of the ships began at the beginning of 1974, the first deliveries followed the following year. The construction contract continued the conversion of the Mærsk fleet from general cargo carriers to container ships , which began in 1963 with the semi-container ship Tobias Mærsk and continued in 1973 with the first full container ship Svendborg Mærsk . The ships were used in the Far East-USA service.
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The A-class ships were equipped with a geared turbine system when they were built, which enabled a speed of 25.3 knots. They were not among the largest ships of their kind, but were roughly the size of second-generation container ships. Initially, the ships had a capacity of 1984 TEU with 227 refrigerated container connections; In 1978 all ships were lengthened by a 40-foot container section in front of the deckhouse to increase capacity.
Between 1983 and 1985, the nine ships went through another series of notable modifications. The units built by Blohm + Voss were fitted with diesel propulsion systems in Japan every nine weeks, one after the other, and a further 40-foot container midship section was added. The Arthur Mærsk was the first ship to arrive on June 16, 1983 at the Hitachi Zosen shipyard in Innoshima for conversion. The old stern was separated and replaced by a completely new stern with machinery. The completed conversion was put back into operation as the new Arthur Mærsk building. The remaining stern was fitted with a diesel engine system, extended by a 40-foot section and joined with another foredeck. So the rest of the pure container ship conversions were cut apart and put together with a prepared "foreign" diesel engine aft section, with the remaining aft section forming the basis for the next engine conversion. After the last conversion was completed, the remaining aft stern was laid up for some time and later scrapped. Usually the name stays with the aft ship for such modifications; here the ships converted in this way were given the name of the forecastle. The trio built by Flender was also equipped with a new diesel engine drive. These three ships retained their stern and construction names and were given an eight-cylinder instead of a ten-cylinder with the same basic engine type.
The converted ships from the original Blohm + Voss units with the construction numbers 887 and 892 as well as two of the three Flender buildings each received an additional ro-ro superstructure that offered 1,500 lane meters of space for rolling cargo.
The first ships in the series were scrapped in 1999 and 2002, five more followed between 2008 and 2010. The last two ships remained in service for the Italian shipping company Ignazio Messina & C. and were scrapped at the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015.
Anders Maersk's steam boiler explosion during construction
On the evening of January 9, 1976, eight days before a planned test drive, the six-meter-high steel boiler exploded at 6:13 p.m., and 300 ° C steam escaped explosively. Of the around 50 men on board, twelve died immediately, 29 suffered severe scalds or injuries from metal parts flying around.
The injured were brought from the Blohm + Voss shipyard on the Steinwerder island through the old Elbe tunnel to the Altona, St. Georg and Hafenkrankenhaus hospitals, where another 15 workers died from their serious injuries. A total of 27 workers died in the accident.
The cause could not be clearly determined, also because the responsible safety engineer and other experts died in the explosion. Experts suspected that diesel oil dripping into the boiler created a gas-air mixture that ignited in the boiler tubes.
The Hamburg public prosecutor closed the investigation for negligent homicide at the end of February 1978; the shipyard could not be found to be at fault. The Anders Maersk was delivered to the shipping company six months late.
The Jolly Nero collides in Genoa
On May 7, 2013, the Jolly Nero - ex Axel Mærsk - rammed the 54-meter-high control tower in the port of Genoa , which collapsed together with an adjacent administrative building on stilts. Nine people died and another four were injured, some seriously.
The ships
| Maersk A class | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building name | Shipyard / construction number | IMO number | delivery | Later names and whereabouts |
| Adrian Mærsk | Blohm + Voss / 887 | 7361180 | August 1975 | December 1984 Conversion with the foredeck of the Albert Mærsk → underway again as Albert Mærsk , 1995 → Ltc Calvin P. Titus , 1999 → Maersk Arizona , 2006 → Jolly Arancione , scrapped in Alang from November 8, 2014 |
| Arnold Mærsk | Flender / 609 | 7361336 | November 1975 | 1995 → Maersk Newark , 1999 → Newark , canceled from February 18, 1999 in Alang |
| Albert Mærsk | Blohm + Voss / 888 | 7361192 | December 1975 | December 1984 foredeck after renovation → Adrian Mærsk , stern scrapped |
| Anna Mærsk | Blohm + Voss / 889 | 7361207 | December 1975 | May 1984 Conversion with the foredeck of the Axel Mærsk → underway again as Axel Mærsk , 1998 → Maersk Barcelona , 2009 → Barcelona , canceled from February 18, 2009 in Gadani Beach |
| Alva Mærsk | Flender / 610 | 7361348 | March 1976 | 1995 → Maersk Vancouver , 1998 → Vancouver , 1998 → MSC Antwerp , 2003 → Maersk Bilbao , 2005 → MSC Antwerp , canceled from May 26, 2009 in Alang |
| Arthur Mærsk | Blohm + Voss / 891 | 7361221 | April 1976 | November 1983 Conversion with the foredeck of Anders Mærsk → back in service as Anders Mærsk , 1998 → Maersk Brisbane , 2008 → Brisbane Maru , scrapped in Chittagong from November 2008 |
| Axel Mærsk | Blohm + Voss / 892 | 7361233 | May 1976 | September 1984 Conversion with the foredeck of the Adrian Mærsk → back in service as Adrian Mærsk , 1995 → Sp5 Eric G. Gibson , 1999 → Maersk Alaska , 2006 → Jolly Nero , canceled from January 7, 2015 in Alang |
| Mærsk is different | Blohm + Voss / 890 | 7361219 | August 1976 | February 1984 conversion with the foredeck of Anna Mærsk → underway again as Anna Mærsk , → Maersk Bahrain , → Ankara , demolished in 2009 in India |
| Arild Mærsk | Flender / 611 | 7361350 | August 1976 | 1995 → Maersk Houston , 1998 → Houston , canceled from April 2002 in China |
| Arthur Mærsk | Hitachi / - | 8317485 | August 1983 | New stern with forecastle of Arthur Mærsk , 1998 → Maersk Belawan , 2008 → Bella 1 , scrapped from May / June 2010 at Jiangmen Yinhu Shipbreaking in Xinhui |
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry at cargo-vessels-international (English; PDF file; 158 kB)
- ^ Klaus Broichhausen, Klaus Wiborg: merchants and corporations in the north of Germany , Verlag Kurt Desch, Munich, 1974, ISBN 3-420-04690-1 , p. 77
- ↑ ndr.de
- ↑ Ship accident with nine dead: captain condemned
- ↑ www.ln-online.de
- ↑ Robin de Bois # 15 (English; PDF file; 1.09 MB)
literature
- Prager, Hans Georg: Blohm + Voss . Ships and machines for the world. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft , Herford 1977, ISBN 3-7822-0127-2 .