MSC Installs Bow Windscreen on a Vintage Ship Built in 1999
MSC has joined the recent trend of fitting bow windscreens on container ships to reduce fuel consumption. Amid rising bunker fuel costs, increasingly strict environmental regulations, and carbon taxes, shipping companies have opted to install various types of windscreens on newbuilds, and have also retrofitted them on a number of modern medium and large vessels.
In a surprising move, however, MSC decided to install such a device on the forecastle of the MSC SYDNEY VI, a container ship built in 1999 with a capacity of 5,608 TEU. The vessel’s upgrade took place at the Daishan Haizhou Shipyard in China and coincided with the ship’s fourth class dry-docking at the age of 25.
It is not yet known if the ship was ‘only’ fitted with a windscreen, or if MSC also implemented other energy-saving measures to make the vessel more energy-efficient.
The MSC SYDNEY VI was built in 1999 at the Hanjin Heavy Industries shipyard in South Korea under the project name CONTI CANBERRA. It was owned by Germany’s Conti Reederei, managed by NSB Shipping, and served on a long-term charter to Hanjin as the HANJIN AMSTERDAM. At that time, vessels of this size class were the mainliners on the Far East – Europe and Transpacific routes.
