Last Friday featured two arrivals of interest, the recently renamed container ship Bunga Raya Dua Belas and Tenor.
As mentioned last week, the Maltese-flag Tenor, with a gross tonnage of 32,837, is now the largest visitor to the upper harbour.
Today, the vessel is to be officially handed over to its new owner and is expected to depart tomorrow as the renamed Marshall Islands-registered Genco Languedoc.
The Chinese-built vessel only entered service last March in the Setaf-Saget fleet, a wholly-owned subsidiary of France's Bourbon Group.
This group's business, originally based at Reunion, was first developed in conjunction with the island's sugar industry.
Among other things, it later became involved with food production and distribution.
The group has also been involved in the maritime sector and over the past 10 years has become a leading international player in marine services with its fleet of vessels specialising in towage, and offshore services, including towage and salvage.
Setaf-Saget, the dry bulk transport division of the group, was founded in 1968 and in 1996 was acquired by Bourbon.
More recently, on July 22, it was confirmed that 16 units of the fleet had been sold for $US545 million ($NZ752 million) to Genco Shipping and Trading Ltd.
The deal includes other vessels like Tenor, bulk carriers in the "Supramax" series, which range from 35,000-60,000 tonnes deadweight.
With the inclusion of those vessels recently agreed to be purchased, the Genco fleet will be boosted to 53 vessels. Only two of their vessels, both registered at Hong Kong, have called here in the past.
The 26,094gt Genco Prosperity, built in 1997, berthed at Ravensbourne in July 2005, and again in October 2007.
And the smaller 16,960gt, 2006-built Genco Champion loaded logs at Port Chalmers last May. Bunga Raya Dua Belas is actually no stranger to the port.
Under its former name, Maersk Duncan, it was seen here on the first of five visits from March 26, 2006, to January 26, 2007.
The ship returned a month ago on August 20, prior to being renamed, having then taken over from Maersk Damascus in the weekly Tanjung Pelepas service.
Under a joint-venture arrangement with MISC (the Malaysian International Shipping Corporation) the Maersk Damascus had been carrying their funnel markings on visits since June 2008.
Bunga Raya Dua Belas also renews a past link with earlier MISC-owned container ships.
They were the 17,215gt, 1234teu, 1991-built sister ships Bunga's Delima, Kenari and Terasek and the larger 21,339gt, 1725teu, 1998-built Bunga Teratai 4.
Between them they made a total of 36 calls on a service that started on February 6, 2000, and ended on July 7, 2001. The recently renamed ship, along with Maersk Danville and Maersk Dunbar (listed to call), are Liberian-flag vessels owned by Oltmann Schiffs, of Fredenbeck, Germany.
And with sister ship Maersk Dabou, they were built at Ulsan, South Korea, by the Hyundai Samho yard in 2005.
In comparison to the phased-out 45,803gt, 281m-long, 4112teu, Offen-owned vessels built by Samsung in 2002, their replacements are 41,359gt, 264m-long vessels having a slightly larger capacity of 4132teu.
The Oltmann fleet has also been represented here by the 1998-built, 25,359gt, 2474teu Ute Oltmann on 10 Hapag-Lloyd charter visits from May 2006, to December 2008.
And as a replacement for MOL Wellington, the 35,881gt, 3091teu, JPO Leo, dating from 2005, made three visits in March, May and June of last year before Mitsui-OSK withdrew calls here.
