Following the announcement that Maersk and Hamburg-Sud would be pulling out of Timaru, Bahia Castillo closed this link with their joint service to the east coast of North America a month ago.
On Sunday, Sea Princess returns to begin another busier, cruise ship season.
First-time visitor Luzon Strait, which loaded logs at Dunedin and Port Chalmers last week, ushered in the 54th year of the export log trade through this port.
It must go on record as being the smallest number of containers handled at Port Chalmers.
Only three containers were unloaded from BBC Volga during the vessel's brief visit to the Beach St berth last Saturday.
This newcomer is on a voyage from Matarani, Peru, to Port Kembla.
Recently, after an absence of more than eight years, the container ship Aquitania made its fourth visit since being added to Maersk's Tanjung Pelepas run.
In port last week, to discharge phosphate at Dunedin and then Ravensbourne, was brand-new Maple Amethyst.
Despite being held on a wet English summer day, an event at Southampton earlier this month has been described as grand and memorable.
Having mentioned last week that the container ship Zrin, here on April 5, 2008, is fulfilling a new role as the livestock carrier Nada, its only sister ship to call here arrived at Alang, India, on May 10, and was beached for demolition 11 days later.
They just seem to keep on coming, vessels built in Chinese shipyards in recent years. Latest to arrive for the first time last week, to load logs at Beach St, was Vega Mars. Sister ship Vega Venus berthed at Dunedin a year ago next Saturday to load scrap metal for Indonesia.
During the past 50-60 years there has been a noticeable increase in the size of vessels visiting the upper harbour, with the result that new gross-tonnage (gt) records have often been established.
Time is running out for a Southeast Asian container ship line that has been involved with operations here over two separate periods.
Another interesting assortment of newcomers started last week with the arrival of the Italian-built container ship MSC Rafaela. But this week the focus is on four vessels built in China.
It was a scene never to be repeated at the George St wharf, Port Chalmers, 60 ago this Wednesday (Anzac Day, 1952).
The centenary of the loss of the White Star liner Titanic has been commemorated over the last few days and the 24-year-old, 43,537gt cruise ship Balmoral, here on February 19, 2011, has retraced the course of that tragic maiden voyage of which much has been written and portrayed ever since.
Azamara Quest is the second cruise ship to be disabled by an engine room fire in recent weeks. Until taken in tow, Costa Allegra, on a voyage from Madagascar to the Seychelles, drifted with no power at all for three days in an incident at the end of February.
The very successful, bumper cruise ship season, is coming to a close. Pacific Pearl was in yesterday, Volendam is due tomorrow, and next weekend Regatta and Sun Princess are due back again. Then on April 19, the ship that started the season off on October 13, Sea Princess, will bring it to an end.
The visitors to this harbour that are products of China's expanding shipbuilding industry have increased steadily over the past few years.
To date, the suffix Princess has been linked to the names of 13 cruise ships that have made 204 visits to Port Chalmers under the P&O or Princess Cruises banners.
Cruise ships come and go and, in many cases, because of their frequency each year, they do not always attract widespread interest from the general public. But if they are a queen from the Cunard fleet, they always become a major attraction.
Two of the most popular designs now familiar to this harbour are the 2824 TEU container ships built at the Hyundai Mipo yard at Ulsan, and a series of bulk/lumber carriers from Japan's Imabari Shipbuilding group.
