The first ‘Super B Class’ vessel
In honour of Cyprus. The heavylift carrier AAL Shipping took delivery of the AAL Limassol recently at a naming ceremony at the CSSC Huangpu Wenchong Shipbuilding Company in Guangzhou (China). The fact that a minister from Cyprus was present underlines the new ship’s importance.
On 26 April AAL Shipping took delivery of the first of its ‘Super B class’ ships, just under a year after it presented its new heavylift class, which attracted a lot of media attention at the time (see ITJ Daily of 4 May 2023). The ship was immediately prepared for its first sailing.
The 32,000 dwt AAL Limassol’s maiden voyage saw it sail from China to Europe with its weather deck full of project heavylift cargo. Its revolutionary retractable so-called ‘AAL eco deck’ has added 600 m2 to the weather deck, bringing its total cargo stowage space to more than 5,000 m2.
This allowed the AAL Limassol to transport two 135 m barges weighing around 1,650 t and 1,425 t on this trip, as well as 15 wind turbine blades that measured 80.5 m each.
Kyriacos Panayides, CEO of Singapore based AAL Shipping, said that “the AAL Limassol and its sister ships have been designed and equipped to handle the most complex and outsized cargo shipped today – or indeed tomorrow. This continues AAL’s legacy of investing in innovation and customer-driven strategies.”
The new class, AAL’s third generation of newbuildings, has three 350 t cranes on board and two large freight holds. It brings the line’s heavylift fleet to 27 vessels, with a total tonnage of 768,000 dwt.
A small country with a large register
The naming ceremony took place in the presence of Her Excellency Marina Hadjimanolis, the deputy shipping minister of the republic of Cyprus, who travelled to China especially for the event.
She said that her government is proud to welcome to the ‘Registry of Cyprus Ships’ a vessel named after the foremost shipping hub in Cyprus and a key trade gateway in the Eastern Mediterranean region. Cyprus has the tenth-largest merchant fleet in the world, with no less than 60 shipping lines based in Limassol.