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Displaying items by tag: Newbuild tankers

A Swedish shipping group which operates to Irish ports, has returned to a shipyard in The Netherlands to build more tankers and also dry-cargoships, writes Jehan Ashmore

Erik Thun AB which has a fleet of almost 50 vessels using four categories including tankers has placed an order for 8 newbuilds at Ferus Smit's Dutch yard.

The contract is for four 7,999 dwt coastal tankers with a Ice Class 1B design and four multi-purpose dry cargo vessels of 5,100 dwt.

The coastal tankers of 114m length overall (LOA) and a beam of 15.87 will add to the two previously ordered resource efficient ’R-class’ coastal tankers as Afloat reported last year.

The focus on this class with cargo tank capacity of about 9,540 m3, is to be the most resource efficient vessels within their trade and have a minimal environmental impact.

All the vessels will be built by Scheepswerf Ferus Smit BV in Westerbroek and delivery is scheduled for between 2024 and 2027.

The new orders according to the shipyard will maintain continuity during these challenging times.

Published in Shipyards

#IRISH CADETSHIPS – Ardmore Shipping Ltd which operates a fleet of tankers on a global basis is taking part in the Irish Cadet Training Programme run by the National Maritime College of Ireland (NMCI), writes Jehan Ashmore.

The Irish registered company only set-up its international fiscal operations in 2010 at the group's head-office based in Cork. The company has provided a number of berths on its vessels for cadets in order to give them the hands-on experience that is such a vital part of their training.

One of the cadets studying at NMCI is Ian Fitzpatrick from Dublin who said: "I am very grateful for the opportunity given to me to work with a company like Ardmore Shipping on an Irish owned vessel".

Ireland has a long tradition of seafaring and with new companies like Ardmore Shipping they will give the opportunities to Irish cadets to learn and progress in their careers says the NMCI.

Ardmore is expanding its fleet with an order for four 50,000 dwt product and chemical tankers from the SPP Shipbuilding Co., Ltd, South Korea. The newbuilds are due to be completed next year and to be registered in the Marshall Islands.

Published in Ports & Shipping

Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) is one of Europe's biggest yacht racing clubs. It has almost sixteen hundred elected members. It presents more than 100 perpetual trophies each season some dating back to 1884. It provides weekly racing for upwards of 360 yachts, ranging from ocean-going forty footers to small dinghies for juniors.

Undaunted by austerity and encircling gloom, Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC), supported by an institutional memory of one hundred and twenty-nine years of racing and having survived two world wars, a civil war and not to mention the nineteen-thirties depression, it continues to present its racing programme year after year as a cherished Dublin sporting institution.

The DBSC formula that, over the years, has worked very well for Dun Laoghaire sailors. As ever DBSC start racing at the end of April and finish at the end of September. The current commodore is Eddie Totterdell of the National Yacht Club.

The character of racing remains broadly the same in recent times, with starts and finishes at Club's two committee boats, one of them DBSC's new flagship, the Freebird. The latter will also service dinghy racing on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Having more in the way of creature comfort than the John T. Biggs, it has enabled the dinghy sub-committee to attract a regular team to manage its races, very much as happened in the case of MacLir and more recently with the Spirit of the Irish. The expectation is that this will raise the quality of dinghy race management, which, operating as it did on a class quota system, had tended to suffer from a lack of continuity.