Rickmers New Orleans Christened

Rickmers New Orleans, one of nine new Superflex Heavy MPC vessels built for Rickmers-Linie, the Hamburg-based global project liner and heavy lift specialist, was officially named in New Orleans, Louisiana on December 6. The vessel, which was delivered to Rickmers-Linie in July and subsequently joined the company's Round-The-World Pearl String Service in August this year, was christened by Mrs Seletha Nagin, First Lady of New Orleans and wife of Mayor, C Ray Nagin. The ceremony took place at Nashville Avenue B Wharf on the shore of the Mississippi River and was followed by brunch, during which Bertram Rickmers, Owner and Chairman of the Rickmers Group, and Jan B Steffens, Managing Director of Rickmers-Linie, hosted 200 guests who attended the celebration. The day was further marked by a New Orleans parade performed after the christening. The parade resembled the legendary Mardi Gras all-day party of New Orleans - a Carnival Tradition, which is celebrated every year on "Fat Tuesday". The roots lie in the Christian calendar, as the "last hurrah" before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. Mardi Gras is well-known for its remarkable costumes swathed in feathers and sequins. After her naming, Rickmers New Orleans sailed for the US East Coast ports of Newport News, Savannah and Camden. From there she is to continue her eastbound rotation "Around the World" within the Pearl String Service calling Europe, Asia and then back to North America. Identical to her sisterships, Rickmers New Orleans is fitted with adjustable tweendecks, a heavy-lift capacity of up to 640 tons and dehumidifying devices in all holds. The new fleet will be complete when Rickmers Genoa is handed over to Rickmers-Linie in late February 2004. The Round-The-World Pearl String Service is an innovative new concept which sails the Rickmers fleet eastbound around the world, linking Europe, Asia and North America. Regular fortnightly sailings and the reliability of the schedules published and updated online are the main benefits of this new service. It provides customers with unique flexibility by catering for project shipments that often involve complex loading programmes. The service also enables special calls at ports not normally featured on the schedule. Regular calls are made at the ports of Hamburg, Antwerp, Genoa, Jakarta, Singapore, Map Ta Phut, Haiphong, Hong Kong and Shanghai, Dalian, Xingang, Masan, Kobe or Yokohama, Houston, New Orleans, Newport News and Camden.