Open top container ship
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An open-top container ship is a container ship that has no hatch covers on part or all of the hold .
particularities
The term open-top container ship is derived from the type of construction that is open at the top ( open top = open at the top ). On ships of this type, the containers to be loaded are stacked one on top of the other from the cargo hold floor via the deck that is closed with hatch covers on conventional container ships . The stowage on deck is supported by guide rails, the cell guides , reaching upwards . The advantages lie in the reduction in loading and unloading times as well as weight savings due to the elimination of the hatch cover. On the other hand, a powerful pumping system, a high freeboard and an appropriately designed foredeck are necessary in order to avoid excessive amounts of overcoming or penetrating seawater. Because the hatch covers are missing, higher-strength steel must also be used and the belt stiffened.
history
The world's first open-top container ship is the Bell Pioneer with 301 TEU, built in 1990 by the Teraoka shipyard in Nandan-chō . In 1992 the same shipyard built a slightly enlarged sister ship of the Bell Pioneer with Euro Power . On behalf of the shipping company Nedlloyd , significantly larger container ships followed in 1991/92, which were built as the ultimate container carrier type by Mitsubishi Harima Heavy Industries and Ishikawajima Harima Heavy Industries. The series initially comprised five Panamax ships. The Atlantic Lady and European Express, each with a capacity of 1646 TEU, were also built on Dutch account in 1992/93 at the Verolme shipyard in Heusden, the Netherlands. From 1993 the ships of the Norasia Friborg class were built at HDW in Kiel and in 1994 the Verolme shipyard delivered two more but with a capacity of 558 TEU somewhat smaller open top ships, the Reggeborg and Reestborg . In the same year, the largest open-top ships to date followed, the Postpanamax Ultimate Container Carrier, Nedlloyd Hong Kong and Nedlloyd Honshu . For reasons of economy, however, there was again no need to build open-top ships with more than 1000 TEU. In 1996, the Hamburg Sietas shipyard began building several, in some cases extremely successful, open-top container ship types , the type 160 , type 168 and type 178 . In 2007, the IHC shipyard in the Netherlands built the Rijnborg open-top individual building for the Wagenborg shipping company , but this was not followed by series production.
literature
Schreiber, Open-top: New generation of ships , Schiffahrt international 2/1998, Schiffahrtsverlag "Hansa", Hamburg, p. 28.