Atlantic Container Lines’ (ACL) Atlantic Star, the newest and world’s largest Container/Roll-on Roll-off ship, has arrived on the North American East Coast, calling at Halifax and on Saturday, in New York. Notwithstanding its name, the ships of Atlantic Container Lines have always featured room for both containers and wheeled vehicles.   Atlantic Star, the latest and greatest ConRo, is the first of five of ACL’s new G4 class ships, representing the fourth generation of this hybrid ship type. The new ships will have a container capacity of 3800 TEUs plus 28,900 square meters of ro/ro space, with a car capacity of 1307 vehicles.

The Atlantic Star is a highly innovative design. Partially an open-top container ship, the container cells guides extend above the main deck removing the need to lash the on-deck containers to keep them onboard. ACL was an early pioneer in on-deck container cell guides and has the enviable record of never having lost a container over the side during the last 30 years of operating in the North Atlantic.

Vehicles are loaded via a large angled stern ramp, but most of the ro/ro space is amidships under the deckhouse accommodations. This allows the containers stowed fore and aft to be carried as low as possible to maximize stability, resulting in carrying less water ballast. While this arrangement increases the tendency to hog, common in all container ship’s, the arrangement of the deckhouse provides significant midships strength to help cope with the bending moment.

The ship is powered by a direct drive slow speed diesel engine. Despite being 10% faster than the ships they will replace,  the G4 class ship’s fuel consumption is 50% lower per TEU.  Interestingly, the ship is ice-classed with a plumb stem and no bulbous bow. The Atlantic Star also has two bow thrusters and one stern thruster.