Capital Shipmanagement has marked the delivery of their new containerships, Alexandros (on charter as Hyundai Prestige) and Aristotelis (on charter as Hyundai Premium) delivered at HHI Gunsan, respectively, last month and last week. It is understood that the order represents the first such series of post-boom super-efficient container ships of this size.
High Efficiency Throughout the Entire Load Range
Speaking in Piraeus on Friday at a Capital reception to mark the event, Evangelos Marinakis, CEO of Capital commented: 'When contracting for this new series of 5000 teu container ships, we paid special attention to obtaining a design with engines which offer high efficiency throughout the entire load range in order to achieve speed flexibility with the best fuel consumption and a reduced carbon footprint.'
Cold Ironing
The ships are equipped with AMP (Alternative Marine Power System), often known as a "cold ironing" system facility, where the shore can provide electrical supply while in port with a maximum power of 3.2 MW. This is a system where a container vessel can, whilst in port, shut down its generators and "plug" into the shore power. This reduces emissions from the exhausts whilst in port. It is not yet a widely used system, but it is particularly suitable for container vessels, which traditionally have a high consumption in port in order to run their generators for the reefer containers. In addition to this, each ship's main engine has advanced automatic surveillance, performance, evaluation and diagnostic systems.
X-Twisted Full Spade Rudder
The ships are also fitted with an "X"–twisted full spade rudder. The benefits of using such a rudder is that a twist in the upper and lower part of the rudder blade prevents cavitation and associated erosion problems developing as a consequence of rotational flow aft of the propeller.
The vessels are designed for one man bridge control and capable of sailing at slow and super slow speeds.
