Maersk ultra high-speed vessels

[roostes]

Hi,

i'm a bit embarrased for posting this question under "news" section previously, sorry. Does somebody know what's the location of the rest of this serie? What can this bunch of laid-up beauties expect to happen next months?

rgds

roostes

[Dave van Spronsen]

The Maersk Beaumont
      Maersk Baltimore
     Maersk  Bentonville
     Maersk  Boston
If search on AIS they al have destination Loch Striven Greenock United Kingdom
The Maersk Brooklyn is on the AIS destination Hunterson United Kingdom
The Maersk Buffalo is somewhere in Thailand
They are also my favorite Maersk vessels

Regards

[Ben Backstay]

There is an article on Harwich Haven Ships and Yachts about these laid up vessels.
Click here to view.

Regards
Pilot B10

[Morten]

These ships truly was a complete failure for M

[roostes]

Can't do nothing about it - B-class ships belong to my favourites. Their very fine hull lines and unbeatable speed is just something very exciting. I wonder, if Maersk has announced in their plans to start already with very slow steaming, couldn't B class ships run with reduced speed as well(in order to consume less fuel, not so sure abt effectiveness compared to other ships capacitywise)? Or is absolutely not doable as these engines can not take such low revs?


thanks to everybody posting links.


roostes

[Cornelia Klier]

Well, here you can see some of them laid up together with an old Sealand vessel :-)

http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=951552

What I have been wondering about: When these ships were introduced, and finally put into a service, they have been cluttered all around various services, as far as I did see (if I am not mistaken) these ones never have been on a special, dedicated fast service !!

So, my conclusion is, that building these vessels was very much like throwing money out of the window !
It was never clear to me, why they were built, and then not even initially put on a certain route !!!

Now, of course they are gone useless and they will be even more useless, once the price of fuel goes even higher.

Of course I do wonder, what will happen, will they keep them rotting there ? Or will they try try to do something a la old A-class - getting them more reasonable engines to generate some profit for Maersk rather than blowing the money out of the funnel ?

Time will tell of course, and I am also watching this case with couriosity, as the ships are indeed interesting vessels.

[Ben Backstay]

They were built for an express trans pacific trade. Apparently they had a contract to ship Wal-mart goods from the far east to US. The first vessel in class was named Mearsk Bentonville, which is the city in US where the HQ of Wal-Mart is based.
They did run on the service for a short while, but didn't really reach their full potential because the fuel price rocketed through the roof, and then the economy collapsed. The ships were then scattered on various trades filling in where required, before becoming one of the first classes to be laid up by Maersk.

[Cornelia Klier]

Thanks for the extra-info the time will tell what will happen but I would not be surprised if they'd never gone active again but if Maersk will sell them so they can make containers out of the ship's metal in the next few years !

[Morten]

These vessels were not intended for the transpacific run... They were designed with trans america very much in mind! It would make no sence at all to build a vessel specifically for the trans pacific trade with panamax proportions! The original purpose was (according to the company newsletters I received at least) to compete with trains crossing the north american continent. However, they were very quick to realize that this wasn't a viable route, so to salvage a little money, they transferred some of them to the window wiper. But the ships doesn't really fit into this route as most of the trans pacific freight is nonperishable goods.

I worked on this route for about 8 months in total with the Regina and the Columbine M

[roostes]

unless some friendly humanoid from outer space bring us a lot of oil to consume, I think they will be converted to US Navy transportship at some point. Or ... alternative sources of energy(fuel cells, even "sails" perhaps) will support action to bring them back to enviroment where they belong.


roostes

[Cornelia Klier]

I think, you try to tell that it is very unrealistic and the most likely to happen is, that they'll keep them rotting for a while and finally turn them into scrap metal if they can't sell them to anyone who has an idea what to do with these ships ?

[Christian Br]

Only Brooklyn anchored when we (shuttle tanker Gerd Knutsen) arrived today...

Chris!

[Christian Br]

Small mistake...
Maersk Brooklyn is anchored in Irvine Bay, waiting a move to Loch Striven.
According to our Pilots they all face a minimum of 15 months lay-up.

[Malim Sahib]

'Maersk Beaumont' easily managed to sustain 34 knots on trials. During one of these high speed runs they made the customary astern test, and rang down Double Ring (or Emergency as it is these days) Full Astern -  cue all hell breaking loose!
I sailed with her first Master last trip - him now having seen the light and left the 'Evil Empire'...

[Naviguesser]

I wouldn't be suprised if the US Navy/MSC bought or chartered them as fast sealift ships. That's what happened with the SL7's when they were no longer economically viable.