MOL reinforcing containership hulls

   MOL said it has completed measures to reinforce the hulls of three sister ships of the MOL Comfort, the 2008-built containership that suffered a hull fracture in the Indian Ocean in mid-June and eventually sank
   Work strengthening the MOL Celebration, MOL Courage, and MOL Creation was recently completed, and the ships began to return to their Asia-North Europe service on Aug. 10.
   “The work done on the three containerships aimed to strengthen the hull structures to approximately twice that required by Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (ClassNK), Japan’s classification society, which conforms to the safety standards of the International Association of Classification Societies,” the carrier said.
   “ClassNK has confirmed that the work done on these three vessels was executed according to plan. Further, LR (Lloyd’s Register, the U.K.-based classification society) expressed its opinion that the structural reinforcement completed for the vessels is considered to be the best preventive measure against a similar failure at present,” MOL added.
   Two other ships – MOL Charisma and MOL Competence – are at the dockyards of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and MOL said their hull reinforcements will be completed in late September or early October. It said work on reinforcing the hull of the MOL Commitment, which was newly delivered this June,
will be completed by February 2014.
   MOL said it will extend “all possible cooperation to the Committee on Large Container Ship Safety, which was launched by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism” in Japan. – Chris Dupin