ShipSpotting.com Forum
Shipspotters all over the world => Shipping News and information => Topic started by: spotti on December 27, 2012, 09:17:19 AM
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10 vessels of the BOSTON and STEPNICA-CLASS (5 of each) are in the process of having their bulbs cut off at the Chinese Qingdao shipyard. The objective is to save 5% fuel as the bulbs instead of reducing drag at the design speed of 25 knots or more actually increase drag at the lower speed of the slow steaming mode.
MAERSK BUFFALO and MAERSK BALTIMORE have already had the cut, and have now been Danish registered with the names of SEAGO BREMERHAVEN and SEAGO ANTWERP indicating that they will now be serving the European short sea strings of SEAGO LINE.
So what have we now: the most powerful coasters in the European waters ! Especially sad to see the BOSTON-ships reduced to nothing. Apparently they have even had some new paint on the funnels.
For a photo check www.maritimedanmark.dk
For more photos of the process go to the last line of the text and click "HER" - which actually means "HERE"
Niels
Correction: Still some noses around. On www.maerskline.com go to the flickr-logo. The comments to some of the 11 photos indicate that new redesigned low-speed noses have been added to the ships. By the way a lot of interesting photos on the Maersk Line Flickr in case you should not have noticed yet.
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A sad turn of events for these greyhounds, but according to Equasis, Baltimore/Maersk Baltimore has been renamed Seago Felixstowe
Allan
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Beaumont has become Seago Bremerhaven (06.01.13), Boston has become Seago Antwerp (20.02.13), Buffalo has become Seago Istanbul (06.03.13) and Baltimore has become Seago Felixstowe (15.02.13). The dates in brackets are first calls at FXT.
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Excellent link Spotti - thank you very much.
Thanks also for the extra info Alan, however 'Seago Felixstowe' is due to arrive here at Felixstowe for the first time under this name on the 14th January.
She is currently ploughing up the Malacca Straits at 19 knots, for Suez.
Regards, Rick
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For those who don't know what the B-Class bulb looks/ed like, here's a pic from Maersk Brownsville when I was part of her newbuild crew.
(http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g237/Lexx_dring/B-Class/Bild109.jpg)
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Thanks, Ancient Mariner, for your photo, and also for your previously posted excellent photos of the ship. I recall a photo of BOSTON in the Maersk Group Magazine showing her extremely slim aft section of the sub-surface hull. Not much buoyancy here. Besides it must have been an interesting process to view the operation of getting the ships from dry land into the water.
The yard (now P+S Werft) is now unfortunately in serious problems. On top of financial problems Scandlines has recently cancelled the contracts for two - almost finished - ferries for the Gedser/Rostock run. The ferries - BERLIN and COPENHAGEN - had added around 800 tons of extra "fat" during the construction, and have a lot of other defects.
Niels