Hamburg-Sud Red

[Brent]

Morning

I notice the hull colours in todays posting by Tino of Cap San Augustin can be described in the most kindest way as weather beaten.

http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo-1057683-CAP+SAN+AUGUSTIN

Hamburg-Sud ships call regularly at Napier and we noticed the same paint distortion on quite a few of their fleet, including the modern "Cap Palmerston" class, while the "Cap Beatrice" class colours also seem to struggle to maintain the vibrant red hull theme the company is well known for. I guess the company like many others is sailing through troubled financial waters but the poor colouring must be disappointing to the company and certainly frustrating for us photographers as does not create the perfect "album" shot.

Seeing the photo today makes me think the problem is quite wide-spread so was wondering if may be the result of some major shift to an inferior paint, or maybe not applying as many coats and as regulalrly in the past. I wonder if others have noticed this development on the Hamburg-Sud ships sailing past their lenses.

Cheers

Brent

[Cornelia Klier]

Hello Brent, I have such never seen on any HAMBURG-S

[Fotojoe]

If it is too cold, or too wet (rain) or other factors do not meet the requirements when the ship is being painted, then shipcoatings tend to fall off . admittedly i've never seen that to such an extent as with this HSDG vessel

[Bob Scott]

With containerships' minimum crewing levels and very short port calls, the opportunities for getting men over the side to paint ship are few and far between so the only time for painting is when the ship is in drydock. Meanwhile the oceans - and particularly the North Atlantic in winter - are very unkind to ships' paintwork.
Furthermore, the red that Hamburg-Sued chooses for their ships hulls is a colour that is very susceptible to fading due to sunlight.
However, although the paint's colour may have faded and made the ship look less attractive, there is little evidence in the photos of rust-streaking so the paint is still protecting the hull's steelwork from corrosion. Apart from the somewhat less important matter of corporate image, that is, after all, the main purpose of the application of paint to a ship's hull - not just to make it look pretty for your photographs.

[Cornelia Klier]

Bob,

I think it's time to correct you here. I have seen (although I talk here of an OOCL ship not Hamburg S

[stevo]

23/10/2009

http://www.stevo.be/displayimage.php?pos=-1455

[Fotojoe]

doing paintwork to the hull is not permitted at any port of the world due to environmental concerns. some drops of paint might fall into the water. paintwork to the hull can only be done in shipyard. please also read my previous posting.

[Morten]

The reason why the paint tends to look bleached is because they use a paint with a very high content of dry particles (not sure if this is the correct english term, I learned about this in danish  :-D ). If the amount of resin in the paint is low compared to the amount of dry matter in the paint. This gives you a more matte color and because the resin covers the dry pigment particles and there is less resin present (compared to the amount of dry particles), the color is very quickly faded. We had the same problem on the M

[Cornelia Klier]

"Fotojoe", are you sure, your information is right or does apply only to some CERTAIN ports ?

I know that painting ships in port is something that does happen, and not just a few times. Paintwork is not only done in shipyards.

One example here:
http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=842002 If you look close, it's not washing what they are doing, but painting. Also on other ships they are painting in ports.

and here in port of Hamburg:
http://i46.tinypic.com/mbhn6d.jpg look at the bulbous bow.

Well, yes I think it can happen some drops of paint fall in the water.

[stevo]

COKL wrote:
"Fotojoe", are you sure, your information is right or does apply only to some CERTAIN ports ?

It's allowed to paint in Antwerp. We tell our captains as long as they don't paint the water there is no problem  :-D

[Captain Ted]

Hi guys
I am not sure, but I think this vessel, the Cap San Augustin was sold together with 5 siseters 3-4 years ago to greek owners and then Bareboat-back chartered therefore H-Sued is not in charge of the upkeep of the vessel. They manage however to a certain extent. I saw a few of the same class as San Augustin already in other ports with weathering-away paints. Until they sold them and chartered them back they were in perfect condition, as H-Sued usually has it,s ships in a good state.
brgds
capt ted

[Captain Ted]

Hi COKL

Usually one can say, that worst the country conditions, like Venezuela or African ports, like Lagos etc,,paint is not permitted. In all US ports and
also like Rotterdam, Antwerp, Le Havre, nobody cares if you paint or not.
In Scandinavia and Germany they going however mostly a kind of nuts on the
matter. Problem is,,that every port wants a perfect ship, but nobody wants to give the vessel permission to paint. This is also for overhauls to engines, the moment one asks you need permission from Habour-masters, and very often it is not permitted, but as I said, they want safe ships entering/leaving their ports. Very difficult and contradicting situation which we encounter almost on a daily base.
Generally,, Ask for permission is usually getting a NO,, ask for foregivenss is often possible,,afterwards,,when the paint is on.
On,,just do it,,and as long nobody sees it,,who cares

brgds
capt ted

[Morten]

Ports can be very hard to deal with, but on the other hand, I can understand the port caps as well! I was working on a large container ship and we had a very pressing repair to take care of (a piston was scuffing it's way through the liner and the stuffing box was completely burnt out due to all the metal). We arrived in Salalah for a 14 hour stop and asked for permission to demobilize the vessel. The port said no, but we convinced them that we could do it in 10 hours and they gave permission to demobilize. Usually, 10 hours is more than enough to haul piston and liner - however, this was the piston haul from hell and we ended up working 36 hours straight (hurray for Sulzer engines!!!). During these 36 hours, we occupied 350 m worth of container pier!

I guess you can appreciate how much money is lost in that amount of time. So I can fully appreciate why port captains are sometimes hesitant with issuing maintenance permission on sensitive equipment.

As to painting - that is just silly! I never really understood this aversion that ports have towards paint maintenance! We often had huge problems obtaining the required permission for a bit of spot painting. But at the same time, you could see tons and tons of garbage floating around and 40-50 year old vessels billowing with smoke and letting raw sewage and god-knows-what straight into the water... However, cartons of cigarettes turned out to be a good friend in these situations - actually, I'm fairly certain that it had more to do with "lubrication" than painting when we weren't allowed to paint!

[Captain Ted]

Good day

Of course,,in most countries is Marlboro better as the the local currency !!!!
Lagos and more or less the rest of W-Afrika lives of Marlboro from merchant vessels. The Suez Canal is named/dubbed "Marlboro-Channel" that has it,s specific reason. In those countries most of the time Marlboro does the trick
however in so-called civil countries, like most northern european and not to mention Austalian and New Zealandian ports the authorities are in general not on the page anymore. They live by now in LaLa-Land, total detached from ships and the live aboard itself.
However I understand them too, but nevertheless think the either overdue it or not at all.
brgds
capt ted

[Rutts]

Brent,

All the Hamburg Sud vessels that call NZ are all charter vessels.
The Cap Palmerston and her 5 sisters are all owned by Claus Peter Offen.
As it turns out the last of these vessels have just been redeployed out of the Aus/NZ West Coast USA trade. The current Cap Beatrice vessels are all operated by a german ship owner Schulte - not sure of the full name.
As these are charter vessels all maintence is the responsibility of the owner so I do not think there is much concern for the cosmetic state of the hull.
Naturally vessels are under pressure to maintain their allocated "windows" on the berth and to maintain eco speed at sea in order to save fuel - so time alongside is short.
There was a HSD owned additional loader ( Bahia Negra) penciled in to make a couple of voyages to NZ but she has since been replaced by a charter vessel.