Names no longer hold any special significance for most of the vessels that call here.
Gone are the days of companies that were household names for years.
Their ships were easily identified either by their livery or by a specific naming theme they used.
Most of these companies had a policy of perpetuating names of former units of the fleet.
The only company calling here regularly these days that has continued this policy is Hamburg-Sud.
Founded on November 4, 1871, the company today operates more than 170 owned or chartered vessels, ranging from container carriers to product carriers, reefer vessels and bulk carriers in the tramp shipping sector.
The company has been associated with this harbour for more than 49 years.
It started when the 4106gt Cap Corrientes berthed at Dunedin on January 19, 1961, to load frozen meat for the United States.
The ship was followed by the 2974gt Cap Domingo on February 21, 1961, to load a similar cargo.
Built in 1958 for employment in the Hamburg-South America, Columbus Line and worldwide reefer service, these were the company's first two fully refrigerated vessels. The Cap names were introduced with the 5648gt steamer Cap Frio at Hamburg in January, 1900.
Fitted with accommodation for 80 first-class and 500 steerage passengers, the ship became a total loss after it became stranded near Bahia during a tropical storm on August 30, 1908.
At the time it was on a voyage from Bahia to Boulogne and Hamburg with a cargo of cocoa, coffee and tobacco.
Eleven more "Caps", all with passenger accommodation, were built over the next 27 years.
The last, the largest passenger ship ever built for the company, was the 27,567gt Cap Arcona.
Delivered from the yard of Blohm and Voss, Hamburg, the three-funnelled liner had accommodation for 1315 passengers in three classes.
The largest and fastest liner in the South American trade when built, its twin-screw steam turbine machinery gave it a speed of 20 knots. The revival in the use of Cap names started in 1955 and has continued since.
The first that called here in 1961 were two of 19 so-named owned or chartered ships that came until March 1974.
Employed mainly on the service to North American east coast ports, they were removed from this run when it was containerised in mid-1971, with the introduction of Columbus New Zealand and other container ships that followed.
When the round-the-world service became fully operational in late 2002, it brought about the end of Hamburg-Sud's, Columbus Line's link with that trade and this port.
Their last sailing from here was made by the second Columbus Canterbury on October 24, 2002.
The Columbus Line marketing brand name disappeared a couple of years later. In re-jigging its service on the same route, Port Chalmers missed out in favour of Timaru as the only South Island port of call.
Port Chalmers was reinstated on June 10, 2008, when the chartered German-built, Cypriot-flag Cape Martin arrived.
Full Hamburg-Sud colours returned shortly after, on July 1, with the arrival of Cap Beaufort. It was followed by five other Cap sisters, all 28,616gt, Hyundai Mipo 2824teu class chartered vessels.
While they operated on a joint service with Maersk to North America, the Cap sextet was initially employed on an extended service to Europe. Today, Hamburg-Sud operates more than 50 ships with Cap names, most of which are chartered vessels.
Then there are the larger classes of owned container ships built recently by the Daewoo yard in South Korea that revive names associated with the company since early last century. These include the 41,483gt, 3610teu Bahia class, the 69,132gt, 5650teu Monte series, and the latest 78,399gt, 5908teu Rio class. And one must not forget the Santas.
Two of them, general cargo ships, the 6535gt Santa Rita and the 6112gt Santa Barbara appeared here in the 1960s.
The largest ship to call here in the company's colours was the chartered 2006-built, 31,247gt, Panama-flagged, bulk carrier Santa Anna, which berthed at Ravensbourne on March 12, 2007.
