Lurline is the first of two Kanaloaclass ships built by General Dynamics NASSCO in San Diego. Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering collaborated with NASSCO on the design for Lurline and Matsonia, a sister ship scheduled for delivery later this year. The vessels are the largest con-ros ever built in the United States.
Lurline has a covered garage on the aft deck to transport up to 500 vehicles plus rolling stock, and room for 2,750 twenty-foot equivalent unit containers (TEU). With a top speed of 23 knots, it is one of Matson’s fastest ships, and also its largest and most versatile.
The Kanaloa-class ships are among the “greenest” U.S.-flagged cargo vessels. For instance, Lurline is one of the first ships calling on West Coast ports equipped with an IMO Tier III-certified engine. That 42,738-hp MAN engine also can be converted to run on liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Matson, based in Honolulu, is named for Swedish-born Capt. William Matson. He arrived in San Francisco as a teenager in 1867 and earned a name for himself sailing around San Francisco Bay. Those exploits brought him into contact with the wealthy Spreckels family.
Matson clearly made an impression on the industrialists, who hired him to skipper the family yacht, Lurline. In 1882, the family helped him launch his namesake shipping company, Matson Navigation Co. The company’s first vessel, Emma Claudina, carried building materials west to Hawaii and returned brimming with sugar grown on the islands.
This story is from the Annual American Ship Review 2021 edition of Professional Mariner.
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This story is from the Annual American Ship Review 2021 edition of Professional Mariner.
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