Crowley placing larger ships in Caribbean service

Crowley placing larger ships in Caribbean service Jacksonville-based Crowley Maritime will deploy two new vessels in its Florida/Caribbean islands liner service during October that are bigger and faster than the vessels they will be replacing.
   Crowley said the Eclips will start its first voyage October 4. Its sister ship, Ocean, will enter service a week later. The two vessels each have an added 200 TEUs, or about 830 TEUs, of total capacity and twice the number of reefer plugs, about 160, than the vessels they are replacing, the Sea Gale and Sea Cloud.

The Crowley Maritime Corp. vessel Eclips will enter the carrier's Florida/Caribbean islands service Oct. 4. It is one of two new containerships being deployed in the service.

   The vessels will be used in a fixed-day, weekly service that calls Jacksonville on Tuesdays, Port Everglades Thursdays, St. Thomas Sundays, St. Croix Mondays, Trinidad Tuesdays, St. Vincent Thursdays, Barbados Thursdays, and St. Thomas northbound on Fridays before returning to Jacksonville.
   Relay services from St. Thomas is provided to Anguilla, Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis, Saba, St. Barts, St. Eustatius, St. John, St. Kitts, St. Maarten, Tortola and Virgin Gorda. Relay service from Barbados includes Martinique and Guadeloupe; while relay service to Canouan, Bermuda and Tobago is provided as needed from St. Vincent, Jacksonville and Trinidad, respectively.
   “These new ships will benefit our customers in a number of ways,” said Rudy Leming, Crowley’s vice president of Caribbean islands services. “First, we’re going to be better equipped to handle customers’ need for space during the peak season and beyond — this includes reefer cargo, because we’ll have about twice the number of shipboard plugs. Second, the speed of the vessels will allow us to provide improved schedule integrity with earlier southbound arrivals in St. Thomas and St. Croix, plus we’re able to add a northbound stop in St. Thomas to offload Trinidad and Barbados cargoes.'