The blue-hulled container feeder ship Elisabeth, which departed Belfast Harbour yesterday lunchtime, has completed an overnight passage to Cork Harbour having arrived this morning, writes Jehan Ashmore.
At around 2115 hrs last night, Afloat tracked Elisabeth, some 14 nautical miles (nm) east of the Kish Lighthouse that marks the gateway to Dublin Bay, from where the containership had previously called to the Irish capital directly from Southampton.
Just before 0830hrs this morning, Elisabeth passed Roches Point Lighthouse to enter Cork Harbour, ahead was another containership, MSC Nioketa II which too had sailed overnight but from Dublin Port.
With a container capacity of 658 Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) Elisabeth had been in Belfast’s Victoria Terminal 3 (VT3), and its arrival this morning is to the Cork Container Terminal (CCT) in Ringaskiddy. Berthing of the ice-classed containership, which has the following dimensions of 117.9 (length), 18.2 (width) and 7.1 m (draft), took place at around 0930 hrs this morning.
Elisabeth’s call to the Port of Cork completes a routine Unifeeder A/S UK all-Ireland service that involves a Southampton - Dublin - Belfast – Cork route which is based on a weekly rotation. As Afloat reported in recent years, Cork based Mainport, which acts as shipping agent for Unifeeder, had announced the introduction of the larger capacity Elisabeth to cope with increased demand and adding a call to Dublin to the existing short-sea feeder service.
Feeder ships such as Elisabeth collect containers from different ports and transport them to central container terminals where they are loaded to bigger vessels.
The owner of Elisabeth is Holwerda Shipmanagement, based in Heerenveen, Friesland, the Netherlands, which has more than 130 years of experience. The containership built in 2000 is part of a seven ship fleet, ranging between 4,600 to 8,700 ton deadweight (dwt). They are all Dutch flagged in the Holwerda fleet, which is deployed in various scheduled liner services, mostly in the North and Baltic Sea's, and their multipurpose vessels serve the spot markets in these markets along with the Mediterranean Sea.
The UK-all Ireland port rotation according to Mainport is also ideal for empty positioning of containers between Dublin, Belfast, and Cork, which improves overall integrated services for customers, deep sea lines and cargo owners.
The route is part of Unifeeder’s feeder and short sea network in Europe and services in Africa and Asia, operating more than 150 vessels. The operator in 1977 was originally founded in Aarhus, Denmark, and since 2018, the international logistics company, Unifeeder Group, has been owned by DP World, itself a major enabler in global trade and an integrated supplier to numerous supply chains.
To some readers, DP World would be familiar as the company that owns P&O Ferries, whose former Dover-Calais Spirit of Britain is now operating with Irish Ferries. Its Dublin-based parent owner, ICG, in May signed a bareboat charter agreement with DP World, which has led to the ferry's introduction the following month as the renamed Oscar Wilde, as reported yesterday.
