Three chartered container ships calling here for the first time this week are Buxlink for Mediterranean Shipping, Maersk Norwich (Maersk) and Hansa Meersburg.
The latter vessel sees the return of French liner shipping to the port and the introduction of CMA CGM's new Anzex service. This is the only service offering direct links between northeast Asia and four ports in New Zealand.
Port rotation from Port Kelang, is Chiwan, Shanghai, Pusan, Suva, Auckland, Port Chalmers, Lyttelton, Tauranga, Noumea, then back to Port Kelang.
Hansa Meersburg will be followed here later this month by Hansa Salzburg. Registered in Liberia, both are owned within the Leonhardt & Blumberg group of Hamburg, by single ship companies that include the vessels' names.
The pair were built at Guangzhou by the Guangzhou Wenchong Shipyard Co.
Leonhardt & Blumberg have been a regular customer of this yard since 1996, with 26 units of the current fleet having been built there.
Twenty-one of them are of the same design as the 18,327gt, 1740teu pair due to call here. Although Hansa Meersburg was delivered on November 23, 2007, it traded as Niledutch Hong Kong until August, 2009.
Hansa Salzburg is a newer vessel completed this year on February 27.
The first ship of this design was Hansa Nordburg. It was launched under that name but entered service in May 2002 as P&O Nedlloyd Nelson.
We saw it here on 24 visits from October 16, 2002, to October 24, 2003,when it was employed in the transtasman Butterfly service.
Like the above-mentioned vessel, the Liberian-flag Buxlink also commenced its career on charter to P&O Nedlloyd. Built at Wismar by Aker MTW Werft GmbH, the ship was handed over October, 2002, as P&O Nedlloyd Hunter Valley. As such it operated on a Europe-Australia service, via Suez, for the next three years.
The vessel then served as the renamed Buxlink until it was chartered out from 2006-08 as APL Jebel Ali. Since then the 25,375gt, 2470teu vessel has been operating again as Buxlink. It is owned by Buxcontact Schiffs, part of the NSB Niederelbe group of Buxtehude. Incidentally, the vessel is the fourth to call here during the past month on charter to Mediterranean Shipping, but minus the MSC prefix in their names.
Singapore-flag Maersk Norwich has spent all of its career on charter to the Maersk Line since it entered service on August 11, 2006. It was constructed by the STX Offshore & Shipbuilding Co, and Changwon.
The 26,671gt, 2602teu vessel is owned within the Bernhard Schulte group by the Carlton Park Shipping Company Pte Ltd of Singapore.
The three chartered ships also represent the world's three largest container ship operators. Maersk holds the top spot followed by MSC, with CMA CGM in third place.
