Largest U.S.-flag containership christened

Matson will deploy the 3,600-TEU Daniel K. Inouye in the Hawaii trade.     Matson, a leading Jones Act carrier to both Hawaii and Alaska, on Saturday christened the largest containership ever built in the United States at the Philly Shipyard.
    The 3,600-TEU ship is named Daniel K. Inouye in honor of the late U.S. senator from Hawaii who Matson said was a longstanding supporter of the U.S. maritime industry. The ship, christened by Inouye’s widow, It is expected to be delivered in the third quarter of this year.
    It is the first of two new ships being built for Honolulu-based Matson by Philly Shipyard at a cost of approximately $418 million for the pair. Its sister ship, Kaimana Hila, is expected to be delivered in the first quarter of 2019.
Matson also is having two combination container/roll-on, roll-off ships being built for its Hawaii services by General Dynamic’s NASSCO shipyard in San Diego. The first of those, Lurline, is scheduled for delivery in the fourth quarter of 2019 and the Matsonia is scheduled for delivery in the second quarter of 2020.
    All four will be deployed in Matson’s Hawaii services from the U.S. West Coast.
    In total, Matson is investing nearly $925 million in the four ships, which it says will end the company’s reliance on “near-end-of-life steamships,” improve fleet reliability and improve weekly capacity balance.
    At a presentation in May, Matson said it currently deploys 10 ships between Honolulu and the West Coast ports of Seattle, Oakland and Long Beach.
    The company said with the new ships it will be able to trim that to nine ships and offer two weekly depatures from Long Beach, two from Oakland, and one from Seattle. Matson said it expects the annual financial benefits of the new vessels to be approximately $28 to $31 million with almost all of the benefits beginning after the arrival of the 3rd vessel in fourth quarter of 2019.
    Matt Cox, the chairman and chief executive office of Matson, said the new ship was designed specifically to serve Hawaii and built with LNG-compatible engines.
    “At a time when the U.S. maritime industry is fighting to keep its place among international competitors, this event was a momentous occasion,” said Mark Buzby, the U.S. Maritime administrator. He said the ship “represents the blending of the most advanced technologies with proven American shipbuilding skills and was constructed, fittingly, in Philadelphia. Philadelphia has a 300-year legacy as a major center of maritime industrial commerce and serves as a vital economic engine for the entire region, including South Jersey, which is where I hail from.
    “We need more ships like the Inouye,” he said.