Modern Maid-of-All Work
Recent years have witnessed a number of programs involving new series of versatile, omni-purpose ships targeted at the market for project cargoes and otherwise heavy or outsized items of freight. The multiple-vessel nature of the various fleet investment initiatives has meant that a capability for handling more difficult consignments is increasingly allied with a regular, scheduled service pattern or transportation system, rather than with a purely tramping function. To a degree, this is evocative of the situation years ago when certain cargo liners were equipped with special heavy-lift derricks. Combining a specialization in project and heavy-lift freight with long experience in liner-type service…
Rickmers Hamburg
Type Multipurp. Combining a specialization in project and heavy-lift freight with long experience in liner-type service, Hamburg-based Rickmers-Linie has opened a major new stage of fleet development entailing nine ships of the Superflex Heavy MPC (multipurpose container carrier) designation. First-of-class Rickmers Hamburg is every inch the modern maid-of-all-work, offering a 640-ton unit lift capacity along with a variable hold space configuration suited to the widest range of breakbulk and conventional cargoes as well as large, indivisible items of freight. The 30,000-dwt Superflex series is due to extend to nine ships before the end of next year, with construction having been distributed among three yards in China.
