It is certainly a month for first visits by units of the Pacific Basin fleet.
Earlier in the month, English Bay visited Ravensbourne and last week Crescent Harbour called at the fertiliser berth.
And this week Koombana Bay visits the log berth at Port Chalmers.
Crescent Harbour and Koombana Bay are both chartered vessels registered at Panama.
The former, owned by Eagle Holdings Ltd, is a 20,238gt, 32,256dwt vessel built by the Kanda yard at Kawajiri.
Launched on July 31, 2007, it was delivered towards the end of that year on December 17.
Koombana Bay (28,381dwt) is one of the standard design, 28,000dwt bulk/lumber carriers built in recent years by yards that are members of the Imabari Shipbuilding group.
This newcomer was built by the I-S Shipyard Company Ltd, which was formed two years ago when the Hashihama yard at Tadotsu combined its operations with the Nishi Shipbuilding Company.
The first ship to be completed by the yard, in November 2008, was the 17,025gt Maritime Coaction.
While on its maiden voyage it called at the Beach St berth on January 18, 2009, to discharge its deck cargo of second-hand wind turbine components.
Koombana Bay, which is registered to the ownership of Nobal Sky Ltd, was the 12th vessel to be built by the I-S facility.
The one-year-old ship was laid-down on January 28, 2009, launched on May 25, and handed over on July 3.
This handy-size design has proved very popular with owners since it was introduced some years back.
On March 30, 2009, Lake Konpira, the 100th vessel of this design, was delivered from the group's Imabari shipyard.
Twenty-two of them have now called here.
In terms of gross tonnage they are all slightly under or over the 17,000 mark.
Seven of the newer vessels built in the last two years are over that mark with six, including Koombana Bay , each being of 17,018gt.
Shipbuilding has been associated with the Imabari area for the past 109 years.
As for the Imabari Shipbuilding Company, it was established on March 15, 1942, through the merger of all yards in the Imabari and Ochi-gun area.
Today, it is the largest shipbuilding group in Japan.
In 1970, construction began on a new yard at Marugame with a capacity to build vessels up to 60,000dwt.
A decade later, other yards were merged into the group, starting in 1980 with the Imai Shipbuilding Company. Three years later, Iwagi Zosen joined in, followed by the Koyo Dockyard Company (1986), Shin Yamamoto (1993), then Hashihama (2001).
Four years later, Shin Kasado and the Watanabe Zosen were also added.
The latter, renamed Shimanami following its takeover, has built five of the 17,000-tonners seen here over the past couple of years.
All told, the Imabari yard has built 56 local visitors and the Marugame yard 28.
As for the other yards, before or after they became part of the group, they were the birthplace of another 60 visitors.
Talking of shipbuilding, yards in the United Kingdom once held the record for annual output until pushed aside by Japan, which in turn gave way to South Korea.
But figures for the first six months of this year has placed China in a leading position.
Over that period Chinese yards completed 375 vessels of 22.7m dwt against South Korea's 204 vessels of 18.3m dwt.
This record effectively puts China nearly five years ahead of the government's ambition to make the country the world's largest shipbuilder by 2015.
Last year, China enjoyed a significant increase in new building orders.
However, it is expected to be overtaken by South Korean production again next year.
Workers at Apra, Guam, had a nasty surprise earlier this month after they unlocked a container from the vessel Altavia.
Its cargo of building supplies from South Korea had also become home for non-paying passengers - thousands of spiders.
