UK shipping company Union Maritime (UML) recently took delivery of a new Aframax product tanker from Yangzijiang Shipbuilding of China.
The Lloyd’s Register-classed Monza is the third in a series of tankers that also includes Brands Hatch, which was handed over to UML in 2025.
The newbuild has an LOA of 249.95 metres, a beam of 44 metres, and a total cargo capacity of approximately 800,000 barrels of various types of crude oil products.
The ship is also fitted with three 37-metre “wing sails,” which can be retracted when needed — for example, when passing underneath a bridge. The wing sails were designed by Bar Technologies and supplied by the China Merchants Group’s subsidiary CM Energy Tech.
Editor’s note: Over the last four decades or so, Baird Maritime has seen many similar proposals fail dramatically, with technology characterised by complexity, expense and almost total lack of result.
Real-world conditions are rarely appropriate, and when they are, the technology necessarily requires expensive additional training or even dedicated crewmembers to deploy it. Not to mention the resulting windage and stability concerns that significantly affect the handling of the vessel.
