Monday, March 7, 2011

Strange visitor Fairview Cove

Several shipspotters were surprised to see an autocarrier at Fairview Cove this morning. Due to inclement weather I did not get a photo, but you can see one on Armchair Captain and more on Cap'n Ken.
The ship is Osaka Car [who thinks up these names? She has a sister called Tokyo Car!] built in 2009.It is a Pure Truck and Car Carrier [PCTC] built specifically to carry cars, trucks and other wheeled vehicles. It flies the red duster (British merchant marine flag) and is operated by Zodiac Marine Agencies of London.
The reason for its visit was to load a whole flotilla of second hand truck tractors, bound overseas-likely to Africa. The trucks arrived at Fairview Cove last week and were parked all over the place on the weekend. I estimate about 2 dozen of them. Since they were almost all painted white, I suspect they were returned units from truck leasing firms.
Normally these ships call at Autoport, which is essentially an auto import facility. There are exports from Autoport too, but they are normally new vehicles. Because its load was used vehicles, which arrived over the road, and for which no particular care needed to be taken, Fairview Cove was a convenient facility.
The ship had come up the US east coast from Norfolk and New York, and headed out this afternoon for Baltimore.

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