For an independent tanker owner to undertake a newbuild fleet development program amounting to 3-million tons of crude oil carrier capacity in itself demonstrates a high degree of business verve. But to emphatically put one's own stamp on the design, construction and equipping of such tonnage is an added expression of will, given the production-driven tendency in the industry towards shipyard-orientated and class-minimum specifications. Piraeus-based Hellespont Shipping Corp.'s commitment to a new generation of ultra large crude carriers (ULCCs) is exceptional on its own account, given the paucity of new investment in the category over the past quarter-century.