World’s biggest reefer vessel arrives at Port of Hamburg for the very first time
On her first voyage from South America to Europe, the new container ship “Cap San Lorenzo” docked at the HHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai on 23 March 2014, its first arrival ever in Hamburg, HHLA said in its press release. The new “Cap San” class of the shipping company Hamburg Süd has 2,100 connections for refrigerated containers, known as reefers. No other vessels worldwide currently have greater capacity for reefer containers than the “Cap San Lorenzo” and its sister vessels, which are also amongst the biggest ships of the shipping company. These units with a nominal total carrying capacity of 9,600 TEU (20-foot standard containers) are part of a scheduled liner service between the eastern coast of South America and Europe (River Plate Express).
Immediately after its naming ceremony in Buenos Aires at the end of February, the “Cap San Lorenzo” with a length of 333 metres and 48 metres at the beam was commissioned as part of the River Plate Express service. Hamburg Süd operates this shipping link jointly with its Brazilian subsidiary Aliança. The shipping companies Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM, MSC Maersk and CSAV also have container storage capacities. The following ports of destination are currently part of the liner service’s rotation schedule: Hamburg, Antwerp, Le Havre, Itaguai (Sepetiba), Santos, Paranagua, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rio Grande do Sul, Itapoa, Santos, Tangier, Rotterdam, Tilbury, Hamburg.
The Port of Hamburg is a key hub in international merchandise shipments for handling containerised refrigerated cargo. In 2013, a new record volume of approx. 618.000 sea reefer containers (in TEU) were loaded and discharged in Hamburg. This is equivalent to a 9.3 per cent increase year-on-year. The eastern coast of South America is the second most important region for imports of refrigerated merchandise via Hamburg. This particular shipping region also is of immense importance for exports via Germany’s biggest seaport. The variety of merchandise transported includes, in particular, fruit, meat, fish, vegetables and dairy products.
