November 22 - Intermarine has added a new ship, Ocean Freedom, to its US-flagged multipurpose and heavy lift fleet, stating that this underlines the shipping line's role in serving the increasing demand for modern and versatile tonnage.

The ship is the new flagship of Intermarine's US-Flag fleet consisting of five modern and specialised multipurpose tweendeckers engaged in trade worldwide and a total fleet of more than 20 tweendeckers.

Ocean Freedom (pictured below) is a 2010 built multipurpose heavylift ship with a carrying capacity of about 14,100 tonnes which is able to lift heavy loads of up to 800 tonnes by combining its two 400 tonne capacity cranes. For smaller items, a third crane, able to lift goods up to 80 tonnes, is available.

The ship can carry cargoes with a length of up to 83.75 m under deck and up to 129.5 m on deck and is fitted with a tweendeck for optimised space usage.

With a wheelhouse situated towards the bow of the vessel, Ocean Freedom offers flexibility for handling large modules or for stacking several tiers of lightweight cargo, claims Intermarine.

On its maiden voyage Ocean Freedom loaded oil refinery components and LNG drilling equipment in US ports and is now in route to South America and Oceania.

Andre Grikitis, CEO and president of Intermarine, comments: "The purchase of this important and very versatile asset clearly shows our commitment to our industry clients and to our core-markets. Together with our financing partners "Bremer Landesbank" and "DZ BANK" we have been able to create a package which enables us to deliver a high service quality to our clients and still keeping the costs at a reasonable level."

Bjorn Nullmeyer, head of structured finance of Bremer Landesbank: "As one of the leading banks in financing of modern multipurpose and heavy lift tonnage we are very pleased to intensify our long standing and trustful cooperation with Intermarine with financing their new Flagship."