Delivery of Blue Ridge Highway Car Carrier

Tokyo, December 21, 2009 — Kawasaki Shipbuilding Corporation today delivered the Blue Ridge Highway pure car carrier (PCC), with a capacity of 5,000 cars, to KAW1603 Shipping S.A. at Nantong COSCO KHI Ship Engineering Co., Ltd. (NACKS) in Nantong, China. The carrier, identified as Kawasaki hull No. 1603, is the fifth PCC with a capacity of 5,000 cars built at NACKS.

The 179.99 m long, roll-on/roll-off PCC has 12 decks, of which three are movable. They can be lifted up or lowered from the ceiling to accommodate mixed loading of different types of vehicles, including buses and trucks. There are two rampways to facilitate the loading and unloading of large cars driven to/from ports.

In an effort to make the ship more eco-friendly, the carrier is powered by an electronically controlled ME engine that optimizes fuel injection patterns and exhaust valve opening/closing timing, by allowing the operator to select either an economy mode that reduces fuel consumption or an emission mode that reduces exhaust emissions.