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Second vehicle
freighter planned
for Hawaii

Pasha Hawaii exercises
an option to have a $69 million,
580-foot car carrier built for
mainland-isle tranportation

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By Russ Lynch
Star-Bulletin

A mainland shipping partnership said today it has ordered a second all-vehicle freighter built specifically for the West Coast-Hawaii trade, a year and a half before it is due to take delivery of the first.

Pasha Hawaii Transport Lines said it exercised an option with a shipbuilder to construct a sister ship to the one it announced in July. Costing $69 million, about the same as the first, the second ship will be very much like the first, which is scheduled for delivery in the spring of 2002. Designed solely for the vehicle trade, each will be about 580 feet long and have 10 decks and a capacity to haul more than 4,000 vehicles.

"The response we received when we announced our plans for deployment of the first vessel in the Hawaii-mainland trade was well beyond our expectations," said George W. Pasha IV, president and chief executive officer of Pasha Hawaii Transport Lines.

The second ship will have three hoistable decks, three extra-strength decks and a 100-ton stern ramp, enabling it to carry heavy and large equipment as well as cars, vans and trucks, he said.

Halter Marine Inc. has the contracts to build both ships at its Pascagoula, Miss., shipyard. Information on the completion date for the second ship was not immediately available. Its construction will depend on U.S. Maritime Administration for the financing, which was obtained earlier for the first ship.

Pasha Hawaii Transport Lines is a joint venture of the Pasha Group, a Southern California-headquartered transportation logistics firm, and Van Ommeren Shipping (USA), a Connecticut-based ship operator. Pasha will handle the marketing, logistics and terminal operations and Van Ommeren will operate the ships themselves. Pasha said more than 150,000 vehicles are shipped each year between the mainland and Hawaii. Most of those come aboard Matson Navigation Co. and CSX Lines vessels.

Jeff Hull, a Matson spokesman in San Francisco, said today that Matson will "continue to work closely with our auto customers and major manufacturers to ensure them high levels of service." Brian Taylor, CSX vice president and general manager in Hawaii, said his line, too, will work on "keeping expenses down and providing the best possible service to our customers to make us the carrier of choice."