Horizon ships to be dry docked in Vietnam

Horizon ships to be dry docked in Vietnam    Three D-7 class Horizon Lines containerships ships operating in the U.S. mainland-Alaska trade will be overhauled in coming months at a shipyard in Vietnam.
   A spokesman said the company will put a relief vessel, the Horizon Consumer, into the rotation, so that the work, which he described as a “regular dry docking” does not disrupt the company’s regular service.
   The three ships to have work done, the Horizon Anchorage, Horizon Tacoma and the Horizon Kodiak, are 1,668-TEU containerships built in 1987. The Horizon Kodiak will sail for Vietnam on Jan. 12, then be followed by the other ships.
   Last month Horizon received a letter from the Coast Guard National Vessel Documentation Center saying the work would not adversely affect the eligibility of the vessels to trade in the coastwise Jones Act trades.
   The Coast Guard told the company the proposed work did not involve modification of the hull or superstructure of the vessels, and even if all the steel both removed and added were totaled up it would be less than the 7.5 percent of the lightship steelweight of the each of the vessels.
   Plans to replace the breakwater on the Horizon Anchorage would be less than 1 percent of the lightship steelweight of the vessel, “below the threshold of 1.5 percent which has been consistently applied to determine whether the addition of an item would be deemed to be a major component of the hull or the superstructure.”
   In the past Horizon has dry docked ships at both domestic shipyards in locations such as Brooklyn and Bellingham, and foreign locations such as Portugal and Vancouver, Canada.
   The Coast Guard determination that Horizon can do the work on its ships in Vietnam, comes after disputes between the documentation center and the Shipbuilders Council of America over work done by other Jones Act carriers — the Hawaii-mainland container carrier Matson Navigation and the Florida-based barge company Seacor — in foreign shipyards.
   Last month a judge ruled against the Shipbuilders Council in its challenge to the rebuilding of the Matson ship Mokihana in a Chinese shipyard.