Safmarine's second quarter began with a busy 10 days, commencing with the naming ceremony for the Safmarine Nyassa, which took place at the Volkswerft shipyard in Stralsund Germany. The vessel, the second in a series of five containerships to be delivered to Safmarine by the Hegemann Group-owned yard, was named by Mrs. Linda E. Burke, wife of Mr. Richard E. Burke, President of Seamates, Inc. of the United States.
Safmarine's customer host at the naming, Jens Norgaard, Americas Region Executive stated : "It's a real privilege to have involved one of our most valued American customers in naming this ship as she will be directly involved in servicing their cargo on our AMEX service between Southern Africa and The US East Coast " The ship will enter into the Amex service In May.
A week later, on the other side of the Atlantic, customers, Safmarine, the Port Authority of Maryland and the local shipping community celebrated the maiden call of Safmarine Nyassa's sistership Safmarine Ngami in the Port of Baltimore. This maiden call, together with her arrival on-schedule in Newark marked a historic return of a fully-owned ship carrying the Safmarine logoscript on a white hull to United States. The service had previously been served by Safmarine with chartered tonnage only.
John Boudreau, President of Safmarine, Inc. commented, "The original formation of our company resulted from a partnership between Henry Mercer, the president of the American Company, States Marine Corporation and Dr. Hendrik van der Bijl, a well-known South African industrialist, back in 1946. The US Government provided the three ships which became Safmarine's first owned, general purpose cargo ships on the US-South Africa trade and Safmarine's first owned vessel, the Constantia arrived in Table Bay Harbour, Cape Town on August 22, 1947. Just over 61 years later we are now celebrating the arrival of the first in a new fleet of Safmarine ships trading between Southern Africa and our shores."
Meantime on the other side of the Pacific at the Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction shipyard in Busan, Republic of Korea, customers from United Arab Emirates, India, Singapore and Korea celebrated the naming of the Safmarine Kariba, the largest container vessel ever to join the Safmarine owned fleet. The post-Panamax ship was named by Philomena Aranha, wife of Martin Joakim Aranha, Managing Director of Globelink West Star Shipping Services LLC of the United Arab Emirates.
Outgoing Liner Director for Safmarine and newly-appointed Area Manager for Maersk Line's Latin America Region Torsten Hartmann commented: "Back in April and May 2003 we celebrated with our customers the maiden calls of the Costamare-owned chartered ship Safmarine Antwerp in Nhava Sheva, Jebel Ali and Antwerp. She was a Hanjin Heavy Industries-built ship of a similar size and bore the same Safmarine script and colors, and served many of our customers here today on the Prime Express service between Southern Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Five years later we are delighted to now have the Safmarine Kariba join our fleet as a fully-fledged Safmarine-owned vessel and look forward to having a second sister vessel join her in June this year"
Both vessels will join the Group network in April and June respectively.
The Safmarine Nyassa has a crew complement of 17 and senior crew present at the naming of the Safmarine Nyassa included the Master of the Safmarine Nyassa, Captain Mark Linders, Chief Engineer Christopher Smith, Chief Officer Louis Marais, Second Engineer Francis Owens and Electrical Engineer Christian Safar.
The Safmarine Nyassa is named after Lake Nyassa (also known as Lake Malawi), an East African lake bordered by Mozambique, Malawi and Tanzania.
The Safmarine Kariba has a crew complement of 18 and senior crew present at the naming of the Safmarine Kariba inc
