Morning Carol

 The proliferation of female names among shipping companies continues unabated with today's arrival of the auto carrier Morning Carol. The ship belongs to Eukor, the Wallenius-Wilhelmsen owned company, which has about eighty ships in its fleet, many with women's names.

The Mediterranean Shipping Company, MSC, also favours such names for most of the ships in its huge fleet. The company's website claims 800 ships - many chartered - but about one third are given other types of names. 

Yesterday's arrival, the tanker Silver Ginny is another exmaple. It is operated bythe Sinokor Petrochemical Co Ltd. 

Today's (November 29) ship poses a bit of a mystery, since some sources indicate that it is laid up, or has been, since January 16, 2020. At that time some autocarrier operators were parking their older ships due to diminished demand brought on by the COVID-19 epidemic. Things have changed however and now demand exceeds supply - particularly on Asian trade routes. Operators are assigning their largest ships to those routes, and the smaller and older ships, are now appearing in North America.

Many of Eukor's ships, and those of the Wallenius Wilhelmsen sister companies, were placed in cold layup in Norwegian fjords, close to their usual load ports for convenience when they returned to service. Morning Carol may have been laid up until earlier this year, as it underwent its most recent five year survey in April.

Eukor is rather coy about some information such as the capacity of individual ships. I can't find published details on this ship's actual capacity. From its tonnage, it would be in the 6200 unit range of size RT43 cars.

,

 Morning Carol was built by Hyundai Samho in Mokpo in 2008. It is a 57,542 gt, 21,044 dwt ship.  As with many of the older auto carriers, it is equipped with stern and side ramps. Following the usual Wallenius Wilhelmsen North Atlantic route it sailed from Bremerhaven November 14, Goteborg November 16-17,  and Zeebrugge November 19-20.