Taiwan Area’s Evergreen Group has commissioned the world’s highest capacity containership to date, topping the 24,000 teu mark. The first in a series of seven booked from China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) yards, the 400m Ever Alot represents a new milestone for Chinese production.
The project also highlights an important contractual association between an enterprise in the Republic of China and industry in the People’s Republic.
Hudong-Zhonghua was entrusted with five of the seven behemoths, led by the 24,004 teu Ever Alot, while construction of the two other vessels was assigned to Jiangnan Shipyard.
An initial batch of six vessels of the A-class, to the same main dimensions but at a marginally lower nominal slot capacity of 23,992 teu, had been ordered from Samsung Heavy Industries, and the first ship, Ever Ace, was handed over in July 2021.
Until Ever Alot’s recent debut in the east /Europe liner express trade, whereby she is currently on passage for arrival in northern France during early August, Ever Ace had held the title as the largest boxship by the measure of nominal teu intake.
CSSC asserts that the Ever Alot series has been independently designed by Hudong-Zhonghua, which owns certain intellectual property rights. The potent propulsion machinery was manufactured in China by CSSC-MES Diesel (CMD) under licence from Swiss-based Winterthur Gas & Diesel (WinGD), 100% owned by CSSC since 2016.
The 11-cylinder X92-B two-stroke is rated for an output of 60,400kW at 70rpm crankshaft speed, and exhaust gas cleaning technology has been adopted to ensure compliance with sulphur emission edicts. One of the two scrubbers serves the main engine, and the other unit treats the exhaust streams from the five auxiliaries. Each of the prime movers in the Nishishiba genset aggregates turns out a maximum 4,300kW, indicating the ship’s considerable electrical load.
Within main dimensions of 399.99m length overall, 61.5m breadth and 33.2m depth, the enclosed volume of Ever Alot equates to a gross measurement of 236,228t. The maximum, all-up deadweight is in excess of 240,000t.
Evergreen’s A-class programme encompasses various subsidiaries and flags. In the case of Ever Alot, ownership is with Panama-registered GreenCompass Marine. The second of the newbuilds from Hudong-Zhonghua, the Ever Aria, is also to be placed under the Panama registry, as has been adopted by four of the A-class sextet completed last year by Samsung.
For the 13 ships from South Korea and China, the Taipei-based organisation has also distributed the classification function. In the case of Ever Alot, the appointed society is American Bureau of Shipping (ABS).
