Open Hatch Bulk Carrier News

Vessel built by Naikai Zosen for Nissho Shipping will become first NK classed ship to incorporate special construction for carriage of liquefiable cargoes. A new vessel being built at Japanese shipyard Naikai Zosen Corporation for shipowner Nissho Shipping Co., Ltd. became the first vessel to receive approval from the Panama Maritime Authority (PMA) in accordance with part 7.3.2.2 of the IMSBC code governing carriage of cargoes which may liquefy on 17 October. The approval certifies…

In addition to the recently reported purchase of the Berge Fuji (299,000dwt VLCC), Fred Cheng’s Shinyo Group has also completed the purchase of a 28,000dwt, double hull, Japanese built open hatch type bulk carrier, to be named the Shinyo Challenge. Delivered in 1996, the MV Admire, renamed Shinyo Challenge was another successful collaboration of Fred Cheng’s Shinyo Group as the owner, Captain Vanderperre’s Univan as ship manager and Masatoshi Yokota, Senior Vice President of Orix the world’s largest leasing company - as the financier. The vessel has been chartered to Pacific Basin for a 3 year term plus options and will be re-flagged from Panama to Hong Kong flag and with a Univan trained all-Chinese crew on board. ”My strategy is simple,” said Cheng.

The first open hatch vessel (12,000 dwt) with gantry cranes was delivered to Oestberg's Rederi, in Norway, December 1962. This revolutionary vessel and crane design was a result of cooperation between Oestberg, Crown Zellerbach Co. and the Munck Group in Bergen. Crown Zellerbach Co. was one of the leading pulp and paper companies, located in San Francisco. Its shipping department was headed by Clyde Jacobs, who was a driving force in making the Open Hatch design the new standard for paper and pulp transportation at sea. At that time the vessels were primarily based on the traditional "Shelter Deck" design and the loading and unloading was done with complicated "boom and winch" arrangements.

Open-hatch bulk carrier technology, championed by specialist operators in the North American trade, is to be taken an important stage further through the adoption of deck gantries promising gains of up to 50 percent in cargo handling productivity. Whereas a 40-ton lift capacity is the norm for the traveling cranes fitted on such vessels, which are typically heavily involved in pulp and paper transportation, each of a new series of 48,000-dwt bulkers is to be equipped with a pair of Konecranes-Munckloader gantries plated at 68-tons apiece. Designed for optimized handling and stowage of a wide range of unitized forestry goods, industrial cargoes, and containers, with the hatchways opening out to the full width of the holds, the latest newbuilds have been ordered from Oshima Shipbuilding.