No strangers to this harbour are owned or chartered handysize, bulk/lumber carriers, operated by Pacific Basin Shipping Ltd, of Hong Kong.
These vessels have been mainly associated with the export log trade through Port Chalmers.
Others have berthed at Ravensbourne to discharge phosphate, or Dunedin, where they have loaded scrap metal.
But this year, after time at the fertiliser berth, two moved to Dunedin to load logs.
Therefore of particular interest last week, were maiden calls by two Pacific Basin (PB) ships at Ravensbourne, English Bay on Monday, and Cook Strait on Friday.
The former is the first of their ships to have unloaded at Ravensbourne, then moved to Leith wharf to load logs, then to Beach Street wharf, yesterday, for more logs.
It is due to leave Port Chalmers this morning.
The ship is the third this year to have moved up to Dunedin, from Ravensbourne, since Regent Marigold called for logs only, in February, 1974.
Mount Rainier, another PB vessel, started the ball rolling again in April, followed by Pacific ID the following month.
English Bay is a 19,925gt, 32,824dwt bought in December, 2006 by PB, which placed it under the ownership of Elizabay Ltd.
The ship, which has always been registered at Hong Kong, previously traded for Giurgiu Maritime Ltd as Aries Forest.
Ordered from the Kanda shipyard at Kawajiri, the vessel was laid down on April 7, 2000, launched on June 1, and delivered on September 19, 2000.
The similar-sized, but younger Cook Strait is registered to the ownership of Garboard Shipping Ltd.
It is a 19,779gt, 31,594dwt vessel built for PB by the Hakodate Dock Company. Keel-laying took place on March 25, 2004, the launching a few weeks later on June 7, and completion on August 5, 2004.
New Zealand locations have been chosen for naming several units of the fleet, and some have visited.
One of these was the 18,108gt Mount Cook, a visitor to Ravensbourne on October 18, 2007.
Two other 17,433gt Kanda-built sister ships, Hawke Bay and Tasman Sea, have each made several calls since 2001, the year they were built.
The 1996-built Mount Cook has been operating as Caribbean ID since PB sold it in 2008.
Talking of chartered ships, the most frequent local visitors are owned by Reederei Claus-Peter Offen of Hamburg.
It was on June 9, 1971, that Claus-Peter Offen acquired his first ship, the Annie Hugo Stinnes, at auction in a Hamburg court.
He renamed the 1932gt vessel built in 1958 Holstein.
By 1978 when the fleet had grown to 12 vessels, the company ordered six semi-container vessels with a 576teu capacity.
These laid the foundation for a fleet of much bigger vessels, one that has become one of the largest chartering fleets.
Units of the fleet started calling here in February, 2002.
Since then 18 of them have made 392 visits to Port Chalmers, with the seven Santa R Albatross class 45803gt, 281m-long 4112teu vessels accounting for 338 of them.
Only four of them call here regularly for Maersk.
The largest of the company's ships to call here, last December, was the 54,771gt. 291m-long, 5018teu Maersk Detroit, built five years ago.
But these large local visitors rank well down the chain in comparison to the latest class built for the Hamburg company. The first of these on charter to Mediterranean Shipping is MSC Savona.
This 153,511gt, 165,887dwt, was delivered by Daewoo's Okpo shipyard on March 19 this year.
The 365.82m long, 24-knot, Liberian-flag vessel is one of a class of 12, 14000teu sisters ordered from Daewoo that will join the Offen fleet in 2010-11.
Of the 18 that have called, five appeared in full Offen colours and names, Santas Fiorenza, Francesca, Isabella, Adriana and Annabella which also called as P&O Nedlloyd Agulhas.
The last pair, along with Santas Alina, Alexandra and Arabella, are 250teu vessels built in 2000-01.
All five have just been sold to Techomar Shipping, of Greece, for $US122.5 million ($NZ172.3 million) after being idle over the past year.
The company has nine other container ships in lay-up, of which five 3400teu ships are on the market.
