Mitsui OSK Line’s (MOL) Courageous Ace, with a 100-ton ramp, two height-adjustable decks and capacity to carry up to 6 400 vehicles, sailed into East London on Monday.
Mitsui OSK Line’s (MOL) Courageous Ace, with a 100-ton ramp, two height-adjustable decks and capacity to carry up to 6 400 vehicles, sailed into East London on Monday.
The new vessel, on its maiden voyage to Africa, was built by Japan Shipyards and completed in March this year. It is the first of MOL’s new fleet of super car carriers to take to the water and the biggest ship of its kind to visit the Eastern Cape port.
It can carry up to 6 400 conventional vehicles, and its decks can be adjusted to transport extra-heavy vehicles as well as large earth-moving equipment, reported.
The company expects to have built and put into service 18 similar pure car carriers by 2006, MOL managing director for Europe and Africa Shiro Adachi said.
The ship, which has a carrying capacity of more than twice that of the East London car terminal, which has 2 800 parking bays, requires just 22 crew to run the super vessel.
Among the high-tech systems installed on the ship are a closed circuit television and electronic monitoring system for the entire engine room which signals changes in operating temperatures or pressures of the engines.
The vessel left East London last night for Cape Town after discharging 160 Colt vehicles manufactured in Japan for sale in South Africa, the report said.