Big boxships too expensive to lay up

15 publicly traded container carriers in 2013 were at “a higher risk of financial distress than since the start of the financial crisis.” Carriers’ profits are now almost solely the result of cost-cutting. (Such as they are. The world’s top 15 container lines lost an estimated $1.1 billion between 2007 and 2012.)The average size of the modern-day containership is growing, with the largest vessels able to carry the equivalent of 9,000 forty-foot containers on a single voyage.Such behemoths are proving too expensive to lay up, resulting in fewer service withdrawals in 2013.

[March 13 2010]
Liberia flagged.E.R. Lübeck, IMO 9222467, ex CSCL_Fuzhou.ex ER Fuzhou. ex ER evaded pirate attack in the Somali Basin some 450 nautical miles NE of the Seychelles in the late hours of 11th, stretching into the early hours of 12 March.

The Lübeck was en route to Salalah when it was attacked from the rear of the ship, with pirates opening fire with automatic weapons. The ship sustained some minor small arms fire damage to the funnel and crane forward of the ship’s bridge. All personnel are reported to be safe and well.

Erck Rickmers, chairman and chief executive officer of Nordcapital and of E.R Schiffahrt GmbH & Cie KG (both located in Hamburg) has continued a family tradition that stretches back five generations.

Nordcapital started its activities in 1992 and has since become one of the leading German KG ship financing institutions. In 2001 it became market leader, with approximately Euro205m equity raised. Erck Rickmers explains We do not use Nordcapital for raising finance for E.R. Schiffahrt alone; we have also realised projects with eight different German shipowners (involving some 48 ships), including Bernhardt Schulte and Klaus Oldendorff, though E.R. Schiffahrt has become the main partner of Nordcapital in building up our current fleet of 39 containerships.
Ships in this category can be deployed flexibly all over the world. Their own loading gear makes them largely independent of shore-based loading and unloading facilities.

E.R. Lubeck: Pirates caught and released?

On 12th March, after receiving a report from MV E.R. LUBECK (Liberian Flag, German owner Erck Rickmers), that pirates in 2 skiffs had tried to hijack her,
HNLMS TROMP proceeded at best speed to assist, locating a skiff and firing several warning shots before the 10 metres long mother ship (whaler) stopped. A boarding party soon took control of the boat with two persons onboard. HNLMS TROMP continued to search the area and, the following day, found two suspicious skiffs with 7 persons onboard about one hundred nautical miles from the whaler. Some equipment had been jettisoned but ladders and weapons were found onboard the skiffs. All equipment was confiscated and the mother ship was destroyed.
Early on morning, 17 March, two small skiffs made a fast approach on the EU NAVFOR Dutch HNLMS TROMP with a third boat, the suspected pirates’ mother ship, uncovered ammunition and some rocket propelled grenades. Ten suspects were held on board the warship before being released to one of their boats.
The nine men found on board the vessels had satellite telephones, ladders, AK-47 automatic rifles and a rocket launcher with them. All equipment was confiscated and the boats destroyed.
The outgoing Deputy Minister of Defence for the Netherlands, Jack de Vries, says a regional tribunal needs to be set up to try pirates.