In the late 1970s Evergreen Line, now known more formally as Evergreen Marine Corporation, was not a household name in the maritime sector. The company had been founded approximately a decade earlier, in 1968, by Taiwan’s Chang Yung-fa around a single vessel. Chang, an entrepreneur, steadily built up his fleet using a number of breakbulk freighters obtained on the second-hand market, one such being the 7,637gt Ever Lucky, completed in 1957 as Caledonia Maru.
With this ship a new trade route was inaugurated between Asia and the Middle East just as the oil boom of that period was beginning. The name chosen for the freighter was auspicious as, thereafter, Evergreen began to expand rapidly, the elderly Ever Lucky being sold for scrap in 1979 as new container ships were acquired.
This summer, Evergreen remembered its days of good fortune by naming its 25th L-type container ship Ever Lucky. Built by South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries, the new Ever Lucky, which can carry 8,452TEU, has since been deployed on the carrier’s trans-Pacific service between Asia and North America. The 98,882gt vessel measures 336.7m by 45.8m, can accommodate 18 rows of containers and has a maximum draft of 14.2m.
The L-type ships have a fully-enclosed bridge house and accommodation block situated three-quarters of the way along the length of the vessel, with six container bays aft and 14 forward. The remaining five Evergreen L-types are to be completed by Taiwan’s CSBC for delivery by the third quarter of next year. JS/AM
