Algoma Central Corporation (Algoma) (TSX: ALC), a leading supplier of marine transportation services, announced on Monday (May 31) that it has entered into a contract with Yangzijiang Shipyard in Taicang City, China to build a new Seaway-Max self-unloading vessel for its domestic dry-bulk fleet.
The as-yet-unnamed vessel will be the first of the new Equinox 2.0 Class, a design that builds on the original Equinox Class standards to achieve better fuel efficiency, improved speed at lower engine power, and enhanced deadweight capacity.
The new Equinox 2.0 incorporates a number of design changes, including various weight-saving innovations and a reconfigured stern that incorporates a dual-rudder design to increase cargo hold size, resulting in an increase in the capacity of the vessel by approximately 1,440 metric tonnes. Other design improvements include an efficiency upgrade to the propeller and changes in the shape of cargo holds to improve the handling of certain “sticky” cargoes
We are very excited to exercise one of our options at the YZJ shipyard for the first Equinox 2.0 vessel,” said Gregg Ruhl, President and Chief Executive Officer of Algoma. “Our in-house design team is relentless in their pursuit of improvements in our vessel designs.
Each previous Equinox Class ship incorporated modest improvements over its predecessors, as we learned more about the vessels during construction and as they entered operations. The changes made for this vessel were such an improvement over the previous design that we feel adding a version number to the design name makes sense,” Mr. Ruhl continued.
