At the time of commissioning on July 26, 1978, the container ship Transvaal was one of the largest ships in the Federal Republic of Germany and with its loading capacity of 2,434 TEU , 888 TEU of which were refrigerated and fruit containers, at the same time one of the largest German refrigerated container ships . The Transvaal is one of the third generation of container ships and was designated as type MCS 2700 by the shipyard.
history
Front view of the Transvaal
In Kiel the ship on 11 October 1977 was set at the Howaldtswerken factory Kiel for Partenreederei "MS Transvaal". The float took place on March 17, 1978. The correspondent owner was the German West Africa Line , based in Kiel. The construction costs were around 200 million Deutschmarks. The Transvaal was a twin screw ship, the outer shape of which was characterized by a bulbous bow , a conspicuous foredeck and a wide, so-called transom . Two MAN two-stroke diesel engines of the type K 8 SZ 90/160 B with an output of 19,600 kilowatts each were selected as the drive system. The drive units gave the ship a service speed of around 23 knots. The superstructure was six decks high. The container ship was equipped with the Marisat satellite communication system. Deutsche Afrika-Linien GmbH , Hamburg, Nedlloyd Lijnen BV and the shipyard belonged to the partner shipping company MS Transvaal . Together with other, almost identical, 3rd generation container ships, such as the City of Durban from the British Ellerman Lines , Nedlloyds Nedlloyd Hoorn , the Ortelius from the Belgian shipping company Compagnie Maritime Belge (CMB), the Table Bay from Overseas Containers Limited and the four Big Whites of the shipping company Safmarine , the container terminals in Durban , Port Elizabeth and Cape Town, which had only recently been completed , were approached on the traditional SAECS (South African Europe Service) line.
literature
Yearbook of shipping 1979 transpress VEB publishing house for traffic, Berlin, p. 92/93
