Afloat returns to the Dundrum, Co. Dublin based Corrib Shipping which manages five cargoships for a Dutch operator, with the largest the MV Ziltborg which arrived in the Netherlands yesterday, writes Jehan Ashmore.

Of the five Corrib cargoships which has a total deadweight of 30,000 tons, the MV Ziltborg of 7,500dwcc is the largest of the Irish company that manages the fleet for the shipping company Royal Wagonborg based in Delfzijl.

The cargoships which feature Corrib's 'Celtic' motif on the funnel, form as part Wagonborg's fleet of 170 box-shaped multipupose ice-strenghthened vessels operating predominantly in the Baltic, northwest Europe, the Mediterranean, the Americas and the Far East.

The Ziltborg which was acquired 2017 as Afloat previously reported was built at the Dutch shipyard of Bodewes in Hoogezand to an Ice Class 1A to cope in harsh winter sea conditions. For example, when calling to the frozen Finnish port of Kokkola in the Gulf of Bothnia.

At the time in January, 2018 temperatures recorded at the port was -4° and were to drop further overnight to -6° (feeling more like -9°).

According to Corrib Shiping, usually the fleet when calling in Kokkola, load refined zinc slabs for Rostock in Germany and Amsterdam. Sometimes, the ships will load zinc concentrate (sourced from Bolidan Tara Mines) in Dublin Port and discharge in Kokkola and return with a load of refined slabs.

It is again from this port far north of the Baltic Sea that in late November this year, Afloat tracked MV Ziltborg depart Kokkola and head through the Baltic Sea to Norway from where the 118m cargoship went to anchor in Frierfjorden off the southern port of Porsgrunn.

Last Thursday, 1st December, a berth became available with the Ziltborg calling at the Herøya Terminal in Grenland Harbour, the port for Porsgrunn.

On this particular passage between Finland and Norway, according to Corrib Shipping there was approximately 6,300 tonnes of apatite on board. This was discharged from the ship's double skinned single-decker hold at the Herøya Terminal.

The mineral, apapite, which in appearance is pale green to purple, is primary used as a source of phosphate in the manufacture of fertilizer or used as calcium phosphate fluoride.

On Sunday, Ziltborg departed Porsgrunn and sailed light across the North Sea to arrive yesterday morning in Vlissingen, the Dutch port in Flushing.

The next cargo will be to load potassium and again is to sail into Scandinavian waters with a passage through the Baltic Sea and a return to the Finnish port of Kokkola.

Corrib Shipping added that Ziltborg may get another cargo of zinc slabs to load and so repeat the Kokkola-Rostock-Amsterdam run.