BECRUX State-of-the-art livestock carrier

One of the world?s largest custom built livestock carriers, Becrux, is fulfilling a design brief for delivering high volumes of livestock in first class condition despite a rocky start to its service life.

The 176.7m nine-deck dual-purpose vessel, which was delivered to owner Siba Ships of Italy in May, found itself at the centre of controversy in July when 900 cattle died on a maiden voyage from Fremantle, Australia to Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

Public debate about the deaths on Becrux has mainly focused on the extreme temperature changes the European breed of cattle were subjected to after moving from winter temperatures in southern Australia to the heat of the Middle East.

Stephen Meerwald, general manager of the ship?s Australian-based operator Wellard Rural Exports, is confident the deaths were not related to any fault in ship design because AMSA had given Becrux a clean bill of health on mandatory pre-loading survey?s for the five subsequent voyages since July.

There have been no requests to make any adjustments/modifications to the vessel, he says, and sheep losses on further journeys to the Middle East have been less than a few hundred. The company is awaiting various reports into the incident.

The vessel was featured in The Motor Ship?s August 2002 issue.