Refrigerated ship

A refrigerated ship is a Navire cargo liner transporting non durable products and requiring some Réfrigération during their transport, like the Fruit S or the Viande. They include many systems of refrigeration and are often fast.

They are also called reefers , contraction of English refrigerated ships or refrigerator ships , or polythermes when they can transport products at various temperatures.

History

19th century: pioneers

So certain ships cargo liners transported perishable goods as of the 19th century, their routing at good port was however limited by the absence of Réfrigération: the ship largely laid out of long intermediate bridges ventilated, and circulated mainly in moderate zones. The first ship equipped with a system of refrigeration embarked is probably the Frigorifique , old “a feeder ” of 650 Tjb called Eboe pertaining to Elder Dempster Lines in service in West Africa. Equipped with three systems of refrigeration functioning with the methyl ether and conceived by Charles Tellier, it is renamed and transports in 1876 a meat loading of Argentine in France; the first refrigerated ship was born.

This voyage is however not satisfactory enough; it is the ship Paraguay , equipped with better equipment produced in collaboration with the engineer Ferdinand Carré, who successfully transports the following year the following year 150 tons of meat during 50 days. The engineers Scot Henry and Beautiful John and English Joseph Coleman a little later develop on their side the machine Beautiful-Coleman which is installed on the Liner Circassia . This one transports an ox loading of the United States to Great Britain in 1879, followed shortly after cargo liner Strathleven transporting butter and meat of Australia to Europe with the same kind of machine; it will be also taken again on the sailing ship Dunedin for the first transport of frozen meat in 1882 since the New Zealand. Pu afterwards, it is the ship Orient (the largest ship in the world at the time after the Great Eastern which is equipped with such a machine, re-elected “Haslam machine” according to Alfred Haslam, which repurchased the patents, with the slim lines dedicated at the speed, they are regularly described like “the fastest tradind ships and most gracious which exist”. Their high speed makes them attractive for the transport of passengers, and they are often most luxurious of the cargo liners carrying of the passengers.

With the years 1970 begins the arrival of the Porte-conteneurs and the cooled containers, whose advantages in terms of handling and multimode transport involved current supremacy. The number of refrigerated ships reached its apogee with the beginning of the year 1990, and since only some reefers “pure” are built each year, whereas the container ships (as well cooled as general-purpose) take their place.

Their continuous size to increase until the Ivar Reefer (currently Ivar Lauritzen , with three sistership Ditlev Lauritzen , Jorgen Lauritzen and Knud Lauritzen ) of 1990, built for Lauritzen Reefers, with a capacity of more than 758 700 cubic feet. If there remains the largest cooled ship “pure”, he was exceeded by the container ships and in particular by the Dole Chile Pares Fresh Fruit International, being able to transport 2 000 EVP is a capacity of two million cubic feet of useful volume; it is the ship with the greatest refrigerating capacity in opération
Pour the countries arming more than 5 navires ! Country!! Ships!! Country!! Ships |- | Panama || 299 || the United Kingdom || 17 |- | the Bahamas || 114 || Cyprus || 15 |- | Liberia || 76 || Filipino || 15 |- | Russia || 54 || Lithuania || 14 |- | Malta || 43 || Bermuda || 13 |- | Saint-Vincent || 38 || Antigua-and-Barbuda || 12 |- | Thailand || 32 || Belize || 12 |- | China || 30 || Ukraine || 11 |- | Dutch West Indies || 28 || Singapore || 10 |- | Cayman Islands || 23 || Norway || 9 |- | Kampuchea || 19 || Honduras || 8 |- | Netherlands || 19 || Denmark || 7 |- | South Korea || 17 || Taiwan || 7 |}

Between 1 100 and 1 200 refrigerated ships are in operation currently, including 900 reefers “pure”, 200 freezers and 15 reefers pallets. In 2000, the fleet was relatively young, with 45% of the ships having less than 15 years and 66% having less than 20 years; however, with approximately 15 built units each year, the fleet probably will age. The “traditional” reefers were distributed about equitably between 100 and 500 000 cubic feet, with approximately 160 ships of more than 500 000 cubic feet. With these figures can be added the general-purpose cargo liners equipped with means of refrigeration: socket-outlets for containers, even one of the holds entirely cooled.

In 1999, the world fleet of the cooled ships added up 7 million tons of Gross tonnage, a fall of 2,3% compared to the previous year. In terms of capacity, the current fleet has a capacity of about 310 million cubic feet, against 390 in 1994. 80% of tonnage were registered under a Flag of convenience (the strongest proportion by reports/ratios with the other types of tradind ships), and 12% in the countries of OECD.

Roads employed, transported cargoes

The refrigerated ships are used at the same time in Tramping (for example for seasonal fruits) and on regular roads (for example, bananas between the Central America and Europe). The majority of the roads of these ships are “with one way” in the direction where the way return is done on ballast, without goods. Sometimes, an additional way with a mixed loading (cooled and not cooled) can be carried out to optimize the output: there can be containers not cooled, pallets of Sucre or Grain, cars on the bridge, etc

The transported products are typically untraceable exotic products in the moderate countries; products in shift of season coming from other moderate zones; meat coming from countries specialized in the breeding; products of the sea coming adjoining countries; and various agricultural produce towards the defective countries (Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia…).

The loadings of the refrigerated ships can be divided into two great groups:

“alive” Loadings, transported to an higher temperature at the freezing point, for example fruits.
“died” Loadings, transported at a temperature lower than the freezing point, as for the meat, the Butter, the Poisson.

In all the cases, the temperature of storage is a fundamental data; thus, for bananas, a variation of a degree can involve a premature ageing of the whole batch. The table below indicates the main roads according to the carried loading, as well as the temperatures of storage.

The most transported products are the bananas, accounting for 43% of the transport cooled in 2005 (the percentage is expressed compared to the number of tons km); follow the fish (21%), the citrus fruits (11%), the meat and the products moderate (10% each one). The exotic products or the dairy produces represent less than 2% of transport. In term of price, the citrus fruits come in first, in front of bananas. The banana trade represented 15,9 MT in 2004, including 10,3 MT of the Latin America.

Ship-owners, shippers, manufacturers

The armament Dutch Seatrade is one of the great names in the field of the refrigerated ships, with 150 ships of which the many ones of more than 500 000 cubic feet, for a total of 55 million cubic feet (30% of the world fleet). Just after association between Danish Lauritzen and Japanese NYK under the name NYKLauritzenCool comes, using 60 ships for 13% of the world fleet. Follow Alpha Reefer Transport (9%), Eastwind (7%), Star Reefers (42 ships, 21 million cubic feet, 7%) and Green Reefers (42 ships, 6%)

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