After being absent from this port since October 2002, Hamburg-Sud renewed its local container ship links when the chartered Cypriot-flag Cape Martin arrived on June 10.
The English prefix of this vessel's name is the equivalent of the German version, one of several familiar name themes that have featured in the history of the Hamburg-Sud fleet since it commenced operations nearly 137 years ago.
From January, 1961, to March, 1974, 19 vessels with Cap names, including five on charter, made 46 calls here on Hamburg-Sud services.
Last week, this nomenclature re-surfaced here with the arrival of Cap Beaufort and the familiar livery of the German company, red hull and white funnel with red top.
The ship will be followed this week by Cap Bianco and coming up later are Cap Beatrice, Cap Byron and Cap Cleveland.
All are on charter and are deployed on the Australia/New Zealand/Europe service via Panama.
Cap Beaufort, Cap Bianco and Cap Beatrice fly the Liberian flag and are on charter from Claus-Peter Offen Reederei, of Hamburg.
They are owned by one-ship companies whose titles include their build names Santa Brunella, Santa Bianco and Santa Bettina respectively.
All entered service in the past nine months.
Cap Beaufort is the newest of the trio.
The ship was laid down on October 19, 2007, launched on February 11 and delivered on March 25.
The keel-laying of Cap Bianco took place last August 27.
It was launched on November 17, and delivered on December 28.
Cap Byron was laid down on May 25, 2007, launched on August 25, and handed over on October 10. These five Caps are members of a growing number of a standard design built at Ulsan by the Hyundai Mipo Dockyard Company Ltd.
Of 28,616gt, and with deadweights from 39,277-39,462 tonnes, they are 222m long and have a speed of 23 knots.
And with their container capacity of 2824TEU, they reflect the advances made in container ship design since Columbus New Zealand introduced container shipping to Port Chalmers on June 26, 1971. Earlier generations of container ships carried most of their cargo below deck.
Now it is the other way round.
The 194m long, 19,146gt Columbus New Zealand had a capacity of 1187TEU, of which 636 were carried in the holds and 551 on deck.
In the case of the Hyundai Mipo 2824 design, 1026 are carried below deck and 1798 on deck.
Over the years, Hamburg-Sud-owned container ship have increased in size since the Columbus New Zealand trio appeared in 1971.
On June 12, the company took delivery of Rio de Janeiro, the second of six Rio de la Plata class vessels ordered from the Daewoo yard at Okpo, South Korea.
Designed for its Europe-east coast South American service, they are the largest container ships ordered by the company.
At 73,899gt and 80,445dwt, these 286.45m-long vessels have a container capacity of 5900TEU, including 1365 reefer plus.
The Cap naming system first appeared when the 5648gt German-built, passenger-cargo vessel Cap Frio commenced its maiden voyage from Hamburg to Buenos Aires to on March 2, 1900.
Today, the company operates 14 Cap ships in its New Zealand services but only three of them perpetuate the names of former units of the fleet.
