Swift handling reefers

Earlier this year, the exasperation of Greece?s Restis Group at the inability of Taiwanese shipbuilder CSBC to construct two vessels to the contracted schedule resulted in Seatrade Groningen getting its two largest capacity reefer ships. When Restis?s patience ran out, it cancelled its contract. CSBC put the near-complete ships up for sale and Seatrade stepped in.

In August the Groningen-based company took delivery of Lombok Strait, which has a hold capacity of 17,727m3 (626,010ft3), equivalent to a floor area of 7,340m2 or 5,600 standard fruit pallets. It also has 440 TEU container slots and 200 reefer plugs on deck. In September, it took delivery of a sister ship, Luzon Strait. The ships? principal distinguishing innovation is their loading and discharge system.

Automated pallet cages, with a capacity of eight pallets each (12.5t), manoeuvre the cargo into and out of the ships? four holds and four decks (three in the fore-hold) through four doors on the starboard side. The weatherproof system, supplied by TTS, is a development of one in common use on paper carriers. For reliability reasons Seatrade simplified it, with some software fine-tuning, from the original Restis specification. This is the system?s first installation on a reefer. Two container handling cranes of 45t SWL make the vessels fully self-sustained.

“Loading and discharge speed is definitely an advantage,” says Michiel Schaap, pool manager at Seatrade Reefer Chartering, the Antwerp-based commercial and operating division of Seatrade. “A disadvantage though is the loss of flexibility for loading cargo other than palletised cargoes, such as trucks.”

The system can handle cars however, with the ships having a capacity for about 650, and the vessels can carry a limited number of trucks as deck cargo. This, along with the container capacity, is beneficial on backhaul trades, where the ability to take on such cargoes subsidises the cost of refrigerated cargo legs.

Seatrade says the ships? other main distinguishing feature is their speed. On trials they achieved 24 knots, with 23 knots being achieved for laden legs, it says. This is higher than the specified service speed of 22 knots.

The ships employment to date includes the carriage of bananas from the Caribbean to the Mediterranean and transporting palletised frozen meat from Australia to the United States. As the banana trade reaches its turn of year height, Seatrade says a number of banana majors have registered an interest in taking the vessels for long-term employment (months rather than years).

Lombok Strait and Luzon Strait have a brine reefer plant, which controls the holds? temperature in a range from -25o to +15oC. The atmosphere in the holds is controlled by an integrated nitrogen gas plant, which can generate about 1,000 Nm3/h/95% N2. A similar plant for modifying the atmosphere in the containers generates about 190 Nm3/h/95% N2.

Propulsion power is supplied by a Hyundai Heavy Industries-built MAN B&W 7S60MC-C diesel engine rated at 15,820kW at 105 rev/min.