If she was a pure vehicle carrier (PCTC) she would NOT carry containers, how long does this argument have to go on - this type of vessel, like the new ACL vessels is a ro-ro.

Allan

Thanks Benny, so you are for her being a vehicle carrier, well you should know having worked on her for 3 years as a bosun. Any other arguments against Benny's comment? Regards.

Nice Picture of a nice ship. I worked in her for 3 years as bousun. She is a vehicle carrier with 12 decks. Deck 1 and 3 for heavy cargo. Deck 4 and 5 is movable. Containerdeck is deck 8. So you have 7 decks forward and 12 decks aft. Car deck 12 is behind the accomodation. Benny

She is more GRANDE(R) now that she is sporting a new coat of paint Krispen and thanks for the info on ro/ro , vehicle carriers and containers etc. It seems that the arguments are differing more than ever re these subjects, I shall stand back and leave them to my more knowledgeable friends.regards.

A great shot Emmanuel! - I've always liked seeing these ships fresh from dry dock (they were regulars in Falmouth a few years back), and made nicer by the back drop of Grand Harbour!

Note on the ABS website link Cody provided. It clearly states the vessel type description as "Ro/Ro Vehicle and container" (top right of the page). Normally ship type is based around the enclosed space, in this case Ro/Ro, as there are no hatches or cell guides, however the containers are stored on deck, and therefore differ in construction to the ACL vessels which carry containers below deck in the holds. You will find these vessels have greater deck heights than typical vehicle carriers, and the trade they are engaged in is not one which is primarily made up of automobiles, rather it will be general ro-ro cargo.

On the discussion of container ships - everyone argues about McLean or the Irish Sea, but most forget that a few months before Ideal X carried the first containerised cargo for McLean, the Canadian cargo vessel CLIFFORD J. ROGERS entered service between Skagway and Vancouver, which was designed to carry 168 stackable boxes (for onward transport by flatcars) as well as palletised goods.

Krispen

It seems that nothing is resolved ,say say ro/ro others stand by vehicle carrier so ??? !!!

You got it right Jadran, I made a mistake writing she is exiting No.7 dock, an imposssiblity as no. 7 dock at Palumbo is the smallest dock taking only small vessels and dumb barges.It should read No.6 dock. So now I will emend it.Regards my friend Jadran from Malta.

McLean was indubitably the father of the shipping container but the container revolution didn't really take off until the advent of the standardised, ISO 20ft and 40ft containers. Although a pioneer of multi-modalism, BR's early containers were pretty irrelvant to containerisation as we now know it. With their rounded roofs, they could not even be stacked.

Kelvin, here's a bit from a talk I gave last year 'British railways used containers for unit loads in the 1930’s, and D.F.D.S. used two small ships, Riberhus and Axelhus of 550dwt both built at Helsingør to transport wooden containers of foodstuffs and beer from Copenhagen in 1951 but the idea did not catch on as the cost of handling equipment proved an insurmountable barrier and now the container revolution is generally attributed to Malcolm McLean in the USA.

sorry about the apostrophe, a finger slip

Allan

A brief follow up to Pieter's comment....Malcolm Purcell McLean was an American transport entrepreneur who developed the modern intermodal shipping container which revolutionized transport and international trade 2nd half past century (Source:Wikipedia).

Well, I remember reading Marco Polo boxed up some things in his time , may be he invented the Container ?

The first inter-modal containers were those used by the Liverpool Manchester railway (the world's first passenger railway). And the first attempt at standardisation came in Europe with Dutch containers. The Americans came later.
Allan, go sit on the naughty step. There is no apostrophe in "Americans". Bad boy!

Allan, the Americans invented the container...

May be the American's don't understand the box shaped things it carries are containers not cars, so it is NOT a pure vehicle carrier. It is a ro-ro container vessel as stated by BobS. Regrettably there is no category on SS for this type of vessel, which includes the ACL vessels, but Lloyds Blue's have always had a category 'URC' for this type of vessel to differentiate them from UCC, container vessels and MVE for vehicle carriers

Allan

If she only carriers container on top of the front part, I can understand that she is listed as a vehicle carrier.

No.6 :-))

She is listed as a Vehicle Carrier by her class society, the American Bureau of Shipping. :)

https://www.eagle.org/safenet/record/record_vesseldetailsprinparticular?Classno=01251619&Accesstype=PUBLIC&ReferrerApplication=PUBLIC

Whose information are we going to get by: Equasis or 'our' site ; shipspotting.com. When I inadvertently posted a ship under a mistaken category, Administration always pointed out the error and either instructed me to rectify or they did it themselves, so I am a bit of a quandary re this photo. Mind you I am not saying anyone of you is mistaken.
Thanks guys and regards.
There IS an error in my description which I have just discovered myself, but I like some eagle eye member to discover before I rectify myself this blatant error myself.

@BobS if those bloody shipowners would only order ships that fall in our current site categories...that would make life easy.

GRANDE ARGENTINA is a ro-ro/container ship. Different to a pcc or pctc. Equasis calle it a Ro-Ro Cargo Ship. By long-standing site policy, that should be the end of the argument.

@Emmanuel: Any vehicle carrier these days is by definition a ro-ro...The days that cars were lifted on a ship by cranes are long over. There is one exception, sometimes valuable collector cars will be transported in containers, but that does not make a container ship a vehicle carrier...

Equasis agrees with Dr Allan

IMO number : 9198135
Name of ship : GRANDE ARGENTINA (during 2001)
Call Sign : ZDJO2
MMSI : 236541000
Gross tonnage : 56660 (since 01/08/2001)
DWT : 26195
Type of ship : Ro-Ro Cargo Ship (during 2001)
Year of build : 2001
Flag : Gibraltar (since 01/11/2009)

But Doc according to 'technical data' as supplied by the site she is listed as a vehicle carrier. regards.

Incorrect category - its a ro-ro

Allan

Hi B.Clark ,I beg to differ ,I may know something about ships, but I don't know about saints save for the ones named after saints which are very common over here.regards

Hi Emanuel, you certainly know all about Saints in Malta
Nice backdrop as usual
Regards

After a refit , she is all done up , Well the saying goes"putty and paint makes the devil looks like a saint" regards.

A good pic, if not the best looking vessel to visit your grand harbour! mr.dot.