Crowley upgrading Central America trade vessels

Crowley upgrading Central America trade vessels Crowley Maritime Corp. said Wednesday it would add new larger and faster roll-on/roll-off vessels to its Central America liner services, effective Feb. 26.
   The 'Stena Shipper,' a 19-knot vessel with capacity for 150 forty-foot equivalent units of trailer space, will replace the 'Tolosa,' a 105-FEU vessel that runs at 17 knots.
   The new vessel will initially be deployed in Crowley's Central America northern zone service from Port Everglades to Santo Tomas, Guatemala; and Puerto Cortes, Honduras. San Salvador, El Salvador; and Managua, Nicaragua are served overland via Santo Tomas and Puerto Cortes, respectively. Sailings from Port Everglades occur Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.
   'The addition of this new ship to our fleet allows us to help our customers by bringing some additional capacity to our Latin America services fleet,' said John Hourihan, Crowley senior vice president and general manager. 'And because the ship is equal in size to eight of our 11 ro/ro ships in our fleet, and fast, we will be able to interchange her in any of our ro/ro services to preserve our schedule integrity.'