Maersk reducing raft on Loch Striven

Maersk, the shipping line owning the six laid up container ships rafted in Argyll’s Loch Striven, is moving out the black hulled Sealand Performance on Friday.

This elderly lady was, with Maersk Beaumont – of the remaining 5 B-class ships, one of the first two ships to arrive in Loch Striven. It is fair to say that her visible age contributed to the alarm felt by the local community who weren’t sure exactly what was being parked up on their doorsteps.

Elderly she may be and off for recycling she was destined to go – but Sealand is now actually going back into service for a time, due to a particular feature of the way the global economy works these days – and to a related feature of the container shipping world as it climbs out of recession.

The Far East today is the world’s manufacturing hub and conainer shipping is focused on servicing the export markets of this powerhouse. The situation has two consequences:

• While the Far East does import, the balance of its trade is skewed strongly towards export, so container ships returning their after delivering a shipment to Europe or the USA, are unlikely to travel with a full load on that leg. Since this is a feature of serving the Far East routes, it is reflected in the freight charges.
• The drop in freight volumes during the recession has left significant numbers of empty containers stacked up in Europe and the USA, where they are now needed in the renewed vigour of export shipping from the Far East.

With this picture in mind, it is easy to see the work that Sealand Performance has in front of her. Her first voyage back in service will be to the USA to pick up a load of empty containers for shipping out to the Far East. At the moment she is expected to carry on in this type of service.

We understand that some of the remaining B-class ships will also be moving away, although we don’t know whether they will also be going on Friday.

If all five stay together for a little longer after Sealand Performance goes, ironically they will present exactly the picture of FutureGate, the rogue Roboibz world in the new CBBC series, Mission 2110, that was shot on the laid up ships.

Sealand Performance’s flush deck played an important part on some of the adventures in the series but her alien aesthetic among the five other identical B-class ships was airbrushed out of the frames for the sake of visual symmetry.

These greyhounds of the sea, that have never had the chance to sprint, face significant modifications to make them more cost efficient. They are likely to be re-engined – their current engines are only marginally less powerful than that driving the Emma Maersk. the biggest container ship in the world. Alongside that, they will need hull form changes to fit their new power load.

Maersk has informed the local community residents of its plans and apologised in advance for any unavoidable increase of activity and noise while the raft is being moved around.

For an account of what will be involved in removing Sealand Performance from the raft, see the 15th May 2010 addition to our long-running diary of the saga, Loch Striven ship layups: rolling story.

Note 1: Don’t forget to check out our one-stop-compendium area for the Loch Striven story, a standing archive of articles on and  around this situation.

Note 2: There is a piece in the soon-to-close Ecosse section of today’s (16th May 2010) The Sunday Times, by the writer Brian Morton who lives on the hillside directly above the raft of Maersk ships. In every sense this is a report from the front line. It is very much required reading on this count alone and then because, in its grace, it documents the twin triumph of reason and right feeling.

The photograph at the top. showing all six ships in the Maersk raft, is by copyright holder Rebecca Martin.