Hapag-Lloyd Names New 10,500 TEU Mammoth

German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd will hold the naming ceremony for the Guayaquil Express, the fourth of five newbuildings in its 10,500 TEU class, at the container terminal Altenwerder in Hamburg today.

Ordered in 2015, the Guayaquil Express will plough the seas between Europe and South America. With a length of 333 meters and a width of 48 meters, the ship is designed for the new locks of the Panama Canal.

The vessel will operate in the SWX service, calling at the ports of Hamburg, Antwerp, Le Havre, Caucedo, Cartagena, Manzanillo/PA, Buenaventura, Callao, Puerto Angamos and Valparaíso.

By deploying the ship, rather than bringing any new tonnage into the market, Hapag-Lloyd is replacing two older vessels with each of the new state-of-the-art ones. As a result, more efficient ships will be deployed between North Europe and South America West Coast “without noticeably increasing capacity in the market,” the company said.

Like the Guayaquil Express, which was built by Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries in South Korea, all vessels in the series are named after ports in South America.

Each of the five new ships has 2,100 plugs for temperature-controlled reefer containers. Hapag-Lloyd informed that the vessels set the highest standards in environmental protection, and achieve especially low fuel-consumption and emissions levels thanks to innovative onboard technologies. They are equipped with a highly efficient main engine, an optimized hull shape and a novel lashing and loading system for a higher utilization.

All five newbuildings will sail under the German flag and are classified DNV GL.

Homeported in Hamburg, the ships can carry a maximum of 19 rows of containers side by side on board, which each have a maximum capacity of 123,500 tonnes. The eight cargo holds and decks, offer a total capacity of 10,590 TEU.