Matson’s 140 years
COMPANY NEWS
The Matson Navigation Company, headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii, is celebrating its 140th anniversary this year after disposing of its oldest vessel, the 49-year-old Matsonia, which has gone for scrap at Brownsville, Texas as the last of ten trailerships built by Pennsylvania’s long-defunct Sun Shipbuilding & Drydock Company.
Formed in the days of sail by Captain William Matson during the late 1800s, the company became well known for its passenger liners that sailed the Pacific both before and after World War II. These included the magnificent Malolo of 1927 and her later and larger sisters, the triplets Mariposa, Monterey and Lurline of 1931-32.
In the 1950s Matson had two Mariner-type cargo vessels rebuilt as the passenger ships Monterey and Mariposa, while an aging C3 freighter, Hawaiian Citizen, was converted into the Pacific’s first all-container carrier. Over the next several decades the company containerised its fleet, retired all of its passenger tonnage and began a move from steam to diesel propulsion.
Today, Matson operates a fleet totalling 20 ships and several barges, which serve not only the Hawaiian Islands but also Guam, Micronesia, the South Pacific islands, Alaska and China. JS
New design for wind farming
INSTALLATION VESSEL
Norway’s Ulstein group has developed the design of a new foundation installation vessel for wind farm construction that would be fitted with an ultrahigh-capacity crane enabling operators
