The chartered Italian ro-ro vessel Eliana Marino experienced technical problems on several occasions during her service for Hansa Destinations in the spring and summer of 2022. On 21 September 2022, she was therefore replaced in a quick manoeuvre by the Malta-flagged ro-ro vessel Cadena 3 in the service between Nynäshamn and Rostock. Cadena 3 had originally been built for the strategic maritime transport needs of the British Armed Forces.
British Defence’s need for maritime transports
When the wars in Kuwait and Bosnia broke out in the first half of the 1990s, the British armed forces needed to transport heavy military equipment quickly to the theatres of operations. It proved difficult to charter civilian ro-ro vessels for this purpose and in the late 1990s the Ministry of Defence (MoD) decided that the British government should acquire six new-build ro-ro vessels to strengthen its capability for rapid military transports by sea. In order to save costs, it was decided that the procurement would be carried out through a “Private Finance Initiative” whereby private shipowners would be invited to tender for the procurement and operation of the vessels. By means of time-of-setting agreements, the Ministry of Defence would ensure access to the six vessels, which, when not needed for military transport, would be employed on the open charter market.
Following a public tender, four bidders were finally identified: Novomar of Norway, Maersk of Denmark and A.W.S.R. Shipping and Sealion of the United Kingdom. In October 2000, the A.W.S.R. Shipping consortium was awarded a 25-year contract including building two of the ships with Harland and Wolff of Belfast and four of the ships with Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft. The reason for splitting the newbuilding contracts between two yards was to shorten the overall delivery time. Still in May 2001, the final contract between MoD and A.W.S.R. Shipping had not been signed, partly because negotiations between A.W.S.R. Shipping and Harland and Wolff had broken down. Therefore, in order to avoid further delays and cost overruns, MoD decided to take over the newbuilding contract with Harland and Wolff, worth some GBP 80 million, while A.W.S.R. Shipping remained responsible for the order in Germany.
However, the problems continued and in early 2002 it became clear that A.W.S.R. Shipping had grossly underestimated the costs of the project and requested that the government step in and support the project, including through tax breaks. In addition, the company wanted to operate the vessel with foreign crew instead of the more expensive British labour required in the tender.
Negotiations dragged on and it was not until June 2002 that MoD and A.W.S.R. Shipping mutually signed the final contract. Among other things, the negotiations meant that MoD did not demand full compensation for the two newbuildings from Harland and Wolff for which it had been forced to take over the financing. It was now clear that the new shipping capability would, after all, be operational from 2003 and that the total cost to the MoD up to the end of 2024 was estimated to be around £950 million. Throughout the contract period, A.W.S.R. Shipping would be responsible for manning, operating and maintaining the vessels, while chartering them out when they were not needed for MoD transport. When operating for the MoD, it was still a requirement to have British officers on board, but during charter missions mixed crews could be accepted.
”The Point-class”
Despite all the uncertainties in the contract between A.W.S.R. Shipping and MoD, the orders at the two yards could be guaranteed, so that the keel laying of the first newbuilding at Harland and Wolff could take place already in October 2001 and at Flensburger Schiffbau Gesellschaft in January 2002. All six ships were named after British lighthouses and in August 2002 the Germans were able to deliver the first ship in the series, which was named Hurst Point. The Eddystone was delivered in November and the Hartland Point in December of the same year, followed by the Longstone in February and the Anvil Point and Beachy Head in April of the following year. The whole series was thus built in record time over about a year and a half. One reason for the fast construction time was that “The Point Class” was based on the well-proven Flensburger Ro-Ro 2700 design, which had already been delivered to a number of civilian customers by the German yard. The 193-metre long vessels could carry 2,600 metres of cargo on three decks and, in addition to loading and unloading via the stern ramp, which carried 77 tonnes, a hatch on the starboard side with a ramp carrying 68 tonnes could also be used. In addition, the vessels were equipped with a 40-ton crane for loading and unloading deck cargo. MaK diesels were installed to propel the vessels and the range was estimated at 12,000 nautical miles. Due to a high degree of automation, the large vessels could be operated with a crew of only 12 men. Furthermore, 12 drivers or other passengers could be accommodated on board in two-man cabins.
Beachy Head mostly on charter
The ships Longestone and Beachy Head were mainly employed in civilian traffic immediately after delivery, while the other four were employed in the transport of military equipment to and from, among other places, Iraq and the rest of the Middle East, the Baltic States and Germany, and to British bases in Cyprus and Gibraltar. Longestone and Beachy Head instead went directly into a longer term charter for Finnish Transfennicia for traffic between Germany, Estonia and Finland.
In addition to traffic for Transfennica, Beachy Head has been in service for Stora Enso between Gothenburg and Kotka, for Finnlines on the Helsinki – Aarhus – Malmö – Halmstad – Wallhamn route and for DFDS between Marseille and Tunis. The operations for the MoD were limited, although Beachy Head was always on standby to be put at the disposal of the MoD at short notice.
In autumn 2011, the MoD declared that Beachy Head and Longstone would be withdrawn from the contract between A.W.S.R. Shipping and the MoD due to cost-cutting requirements and that they had been used very little for military transport. However, it was not until the spring of 2014 that Beachy Head found a buyer in the Belgian shipping company Cobelfret, and Longstone was sold to Finnlines of Finland some time later. Those transactions left only four vessels in the pool of ro-ro tonnage for the British armed forces.
Cobelfret leases out its new acquisition
Beachy Head was renamed Williamsborg and reflagged to Malta, after which it was chartered out by Cobelfret to the Danish shipping company Nordana, which specialises in heavy transport.
In January 2016, Williamsborg changed its name to Massimo Mura and reflagged to Italy for a longer bareboat charter to Italian Tirrenia, which had just been acquired by Vincenzo Onorato and his Moby Lines. For the next few years Massimo Mura operated mainly between Livorno in north-west Italy and Cagliari in Sardinia, but for a time she also sailed from Genoa via Livorno all the way down to Sicily and Malta.
After five years of charter to Tirrenia, Massimo Mura was returned to Cobelfret (now CLdN) in January 2021, the charter having been extended by one year compared to the original contract, but Tirrenia/Moby chose not to exercise the purchase option which was also included in the contract. The Massimo Mura was renamed Cadena 3 and put into service between the Netherlands and Portugal, but already in February 2021 she was detained at a port state inspection in Leixões. Obviously a lot of maintenance was required after the long charter to the Italians and it took a full 61 days before the detention of the Cadena 3 was lifted.
CLdN had now found a more solid occupation for Cadena 3 in the wake of Brexit. She was deployed as the third vessel in CLdN’s service between Belgium and Ireland to meet the surge in cargo between the countries resulting from cumbersome customs rules for goods moving directly between the UK and the continent.
To the Baltic Sea
At the beginning of 2022, CLdN leased out its vessel again. This time it was the Swedish shipping company Wallenius Sol that took the Cadena 3 on charter as a temporary solution while waiting for its Enabler-class newbuilds from China. On Friday 26 August, after a seven-month charter, Lübeck/Travemünde was called for the last time and Cadena 3 was then returned to its owners in Zeebrugge.
However, there was a short time without employment for Cadena 3. After several cancelled trips with the Hansa Destinations chartered Italian ro-ro ship Eliana Marino, the mother company Gotlandsbolaget decided to simply replace her with Cadena 3, which was now available. Perhaps it was Gotlandsbolagets strengthened relationship with Wallenius that helped secure a more suitable vessel for the Sweden-Germany freight route, which celebrated its first anniversary in the last days of August 2022.
On 21 September 2022, Cadena 3 departed Rostock on its first trip to Nynäshamn in the Hansa Destinations service.
Timeline
| 2003-04-24 | Delivered to AWSR Shipping, London as Beachy Head. |
| 2014-04-28 | Sold to Cobelfret, Antwerpen. Renamed Williamsborg. |
| 2016-01-21 | Longterm charter to Tirrenia (Moby). Renamed Massimo Mura. |
| 2021-01-12 | Renamed Cadena 3 after end of charter. |
| 2022-09-21 | First departure for Hansa Destinations from Rostock to Nynäshamn. |
Specification
| Length | 193,00 m |
| Beam | 26,00 m |
| Gross tonnage | 23.235 |
| Deadweight | 13.256 |
| Machinery | 2 x MaK 9M43, 12.600 kW, 21 knots |
| Pax | 12 |
| Capacity | 2.606 lane meters |
| Call Sign/IMO | 9HA3625/9234094 |