Semi-container ship
A semi container ship is a flexible cargo vessel type for the simultaneous transport of containers , piece goods , and some other bulky or liquid loads. Semi-container ships are particularly suitable for services with mixed loads of containers, general cargo , long and bulk goods , as well as for heavy or bulky cargo in regions that do not allow the use of container ships of the same size or pure general cargo ships .
history
In the second half of the 1950s, the pioneering years of container transport , the new transport system only hesitantly began to gain acceptance among shipping companies (initially USA, Australia). Because of the high initial investment, the majority of the container ships used were initially created by converting general cargo ships. Only a little later, when the success of the new transport system began to emerge around the first half of the 1960s, were the first semi-container ships designed and built as new constructions. For this purpose, the shipbuilding basis for the construction of open ships first had to be created, which was initially mostly solved with the construction of longitudinally divided cargo holds or lengthways .
Already at the end of the 1960s / beginning of the 1970s, however, almost all new builds of general cargo ships were more or less designed for the transport of containers. On July 31, 1968, 102 semi or full container ships were already commissioned or under construction. At first, semi-container ships were used on the main liner routes. During the 1970s, the share of container transport in general cargo increased inexorably. After the tankers and bulkers, the semi-container ship was one of the largest groups in the world merchant fleet in the changing sea traffic. In the course of the advancing containerization , it was more and more displaced on the main routes by full container ships to secondary shipping areas .
Only towards the end of the 1970s / beginning of the 1980s, in the course of the more advanced specialization of shipbuilding and the sweeping success of the container as the standard container for general cargo, were fewer and fewer semi-container ships built. At the same time, existing semi- container ships were often converted into full container ships. Since around the beginning of the 1980s, single-deck multi-purpose ships have been built, but strictly speaking, these are a different type of ship. Since the container ship has almost completely replaced conventional tonnage, the small number of real semi- container ships that remain has only found employment in a shrinking niche of maritime trade.
Load compartment layout and technology
Semi-container ships are characterized by an open or partially open deck construction. The cargo holds are partly or completely set up for the transport of containers. Cell guides were the exception in early semi-container ships, but they were more common in later buildings. Instead, the tank top of the double floor is equipped with base points for container stowage and with lashing fastenings for securing the load. The tween decks were usually either foldable or removable so that they could be stowed in the lower room during container transport, for example. At the beginning there are often loading booms as cargo handling facilities , later mostly cranes with load capacities of 20 to 30 tons are installed, rarely above.
Examples
One of the world's first representatives of this type of ship planned as such was the Tobias Mærsk, built in 1963 .
literature
- Rolf Schönknecht, Uwe Laue: Ocean freighters of world shipping . Volume 1. transpress-Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-344-00182-5 (library of ship types).
- Alfred Dudszus, Alfred Köpcke: The big book of ship types . Weltbild-Verlag, Augsburg 1995, ISBN 3-89350-831-7 (licensed edition by transpress, Berlin).
Individual evidence
- ^ Fairplay International Shipping Journal