RUSS LYNCH / RLYNCH@STARBULLETIN.COM
The view from the bridge of Matson's new containership, the MV Manukai, docked at Pier 19 yesterday, included the downtown waterfront and the Carnival Spirit. The cruise vessel is longer than the 712-foot containership at 963 feet.
Matson looks to
advance automobile
shippingA new lease allows the Hawaii
company to devote more space
to roll-on roll-off cargo movement
Matson Navigation Co., a pioneer of container shipping since the late 1960s, is shifting its attention to roll-on roll-off cargo movement, or RO-RO.
The mainland-Hawaii shipping line is not giving up on container shipping -- its commitment to that business was demonstrated by its display yesterday of the new $110 million MV Manukai -- but President and Chief Executive Officer James Andrasick told the company's annual Honolulu news briefing that the arrival of the Manukai was not the only significant event Matson had here this week.
Late yesterday, a RO-RO ship chartered by Matson, the SS Great Land, passed the Manukai's temporary docking place at Pier 19 to tie up at Matson's Sand Island yard.
That ship, capable of carrying as many as 1,000 cars and 100 containers on chassis -- on wheels in other words -- has been hired for five years to run a regular triangle service between Oakland, Honolulu and Kahului. Meanwhile Matson is refitting one of its containerships, the SS Lurline, to add a two-tier "garage" to handle cars and trucks that can drive on and drive off, and the Sand Island and Oakland terminals are being reconfigured to have space set aside for drive-on, drive-off cargo.
Eventually, Matson may have as much as 75 percent of its total mainland-Hawaii cargo handled by the RO-RO method, Andrasick said.
His remarks were delivered in the state's new air-conditioned passenger terminal facility at Pier 19, with the Manukai tied up alongside. The 712-foot ship was being shown off for the local news media and Matson customers. It is capable of hauling 2,600 containers in what the industry calls a 20-foot equivalent. It can carry containers of 40-foot, 45-foot and even 53-foot lengths. The standard these days is 40 feet.
A second $110 million Matson containership is under construction at the Kvaerner Philadelphia Shipyard. The MV Maunawili is due for delivery about this time next year. The shipping line is also well along with a $30 million improvement to its Sand Island facilities, some of which is in technology.
For example, Andrasick said, every driver hauling a container and chassis on or off the docks is handed a global positioning satellite transceiver. From that moment on, the exact position of that container can be seen in Matson's tracking computers.
Matson, the major subsidiary of Alexander & Baldwin Inc., now has $1 billion invested in ships and support equipment for the Hawaii trade, said Andrasick, who is also executive vice president of A&B.
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Smithsonian exhibit to display
vintage shipping container
Hawaii's oldest shipping company will have a role in a big new exhibit put together by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
A 1970-era Matson Navigation Co. shipping container will be among the 300-plus transportation artifacts to go on display next month in the Washington, D.C., museum's new 26,000-square-foot "America on the Move" exhibit. It is a chronologically organized history of the movement of goods and people in the United States.
James Andrasick, Matson's president and chief executive officer, said the container will be backed by a diorama depicting the Oakland cargo terminal and the San Francisco Bay waterfront at the beginning of the container era.
Matson was pioneer of container shipping in the 1960s. The company was started when Capt. William Matson sailed his three-masted schooner Emma Claudina from San Francisco to Hilo in 1882.
