GREAT WESTERN CHARTERS ZIM SHIP, CONTINUES AS VOCC

GREAT WESTERN CHARTERS ZIM SHIP, CONTINUES AS VOCC    Great Western Steamship Co., the small Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based shipping line, has chartered a containership from Zim Israel Navigation Co. to continue to operate as a vessel-operating common carrier in the transpacific trade.
   Great Western stopped operating an Asia/U.S. West Coast service, that used five ships of about 1,600-TEU capacity, at the beginning of the year. Instead, it started taking space on the transpacific leg of Zim’s ZCS service, and also took slots on a transpacific service operated by Maersk Sealand.
   Last year, Great Western ended a transpacific vessel-sharing agreement with FESCO, to which it contributed several vessels, when FESCO decided to withdraw from the Far East/U.S. trade.