Hyundai Mipo Dockyard in Ulsan has got series shipbuilding down to a fine art, reportedly setting a world record for the speed with which it is assembling ships this year.
In the coming fortnight, the subsidiary of Hyundai Heavy Industries will deliver three more gearless bangkokmax 1,809 tea container ships to Korea Marine Transport Company (KMTC) on top of the three it has already delivered to the Korean line since February.
According to container analysts at Alphaliner, the Korean yard assembled these KMTC ships in less than five months, from the laying of the first hull block to delivery, marking what it believes to be a world record for large-sized ship construction in peacetime.
The specifications for this ship type are wide-beam and shallow draft with an loa of 172.07 m and a breadth of 27.4 m or 11 rows.
After this latest trio are delivered, KMTC will still have two more sister ships to take from Hyundai Mipo before the end of the year.
Hyundai Mipo has always tended to focus on series construction once it gave up repairing ships around the turn of the century, gaining a reputation for smaller boxships and product carriers.
During the Second World War, the US was able to construct its series of Liberty ships even faster – honing the construction whereby a new Liberty ship was being delivered every 42 days on average.
