Yesterday, 40 years of containerisation was celebrated at Port Chalmers with the arrival of the Hamburg-Sud group's Bahia. Its Columbus New Zealand introduced this cargo-handling concept to the port, when it berthed on its maiden voyage on June 26, 1971.
Since then 38 ship names and 602 arrivals have been associated with chartered and owned tonnage during the company's 40 years of container operations here.
The more familiar names were those with the Columbus prefix. They finally disappeared from the local scene when the second Columbus Canada made its 17th visit on October 18, 2002.
This ship was then a 24,080gt,1215teu vessel flying the Cypriot flag. It was the second of three sister ships ordered from the A.G.Weser Seebeckwerft yard at Bremerhaven. The ship was completed in July, 1979, as Columbus Canterbury, and made seven local visits between January,1980, and August 6, 1983.
Like its sister ship Columbus Louisiana, it was a 19,194gt, 950teu vessel. However, the third vessel, Columbus Queensland, was lengthened while under construction and entered service as a 21,871gt, 1211teu vessel. A regular visitor the ship made 64 calls here from the time of its maiden voyage on January 23, 1980, to September 28, 2002.
Both of its smaller sisters were brought into line when lengthened, Canterbury in 1985 and Louisiana two years later. Reasonably well-known here from January, 1982, to August, (22 calls), the latter vessel made a further 16 calls as the second Columbus Victoria from March,1999, to July, 2002.
Among earlier visitors at the start of operations in 1971,were general cargo ships like Cap Melville, Cap Race, Hans Bornhofen and Salmela, that delivered empty containers.
Two chartered vessels of interest that called in 1977 were the 4794gt Singapore-flag Nordwoge, and the 5478gt Columbus Tahiti. The former berthed at Dunedin on June 24, but a spell of bad weather held up the loading of cargo into the holds, thus delaying the move down to Port Chalmers on July 1, to load containers on deck. The vessel sailed three days later for Felixstowe.
On the first of three visits in December, 1977, Columbus Tahiti not only exchanged containers at Port Chalmers, but also took on ballast at Dunedin.
Another of the ships that generated local interest when it made the first of four visits on April 17, 1998, was Columbus Olivos. Built at Newcastle by Swan Hunter Shipbuilders Ltd, the ship was delivered to the Shaw, Savill and Albion Company on July 11, 1980, as the geared 18,140gt, 768teu Dunedin. It never came here under that name.
After purchasing the ship in January, 1986, Hamburg-Sud had it lengthened by the Lubecker Flenderwerft shipyard. The new cargo section increased the overall length from 171.13m to 202.17m and the container capacity to 1234teu. Now a 23,291gt vessel it entered service on April 10, 1986, in the South American trade as the second Monte Pascoal in the fleet.
A succession of name changes from 1990 saw the vessel trading as Columbus Olivos on three occasions, a further stint as Monte Pascoal, and one as Alianca Hamburgo.
In 2001 it became MSC Jessica and made three calls here in 2006 while employed in the Capricorn service. Its colourful career ended when it arrived at Alang on May 29, 2009, to be broken up.
After being absent from the port since late 2002, Hamburg-Sud has been active here again with its Trident service since mid-2008 and employing mainly chartered 2824teu Hyundai Mipo type vessels.
But this year we have also seen larger company-owned tonnage such as the 41,483gt, 3630teu Bahia and Bahia Grande calling here and the even larger 47,877gt, 4600teu Cap Jervis early last month.
Hamburg-Sud pioneered container ship operations at Port Chalmers and still comes here today.
Other companies that followed in the 1970s have disappeared and those that are still going no longer come our way.
