Ro-ro vessel “Nedlloyd Rouen” /(1995) “Cape Knox”

Vessel “Nedlloyd Rouen” is a roll-on-roll-off vessel built in 1978 by Nippon Kokan Kabushiki Kaisha for Nedlloyd. It is equipped with a 26,800-hp Sulzer 8RND90M that gives the ship a service speed of 19 knots. It is the sister ship of the Nedlloyd Rosario, while the Nedlloyd Rotterdam and Nedlloyd Rochester were two Dutch-built ro-ro's.

The ro-ro's were built for service between the United States and the Middle East where there was then a great need for heavy equipment. After a few years, the need for more luxurious rolling stock increased, but eventually, with an increasing number of container terminals, it became more efficient to use container ships on this service, upon which the ro-ro's were used on other services.

The Dutch ro-ro's had four decks below deck and a length of 196.5m due to port restrictions in Kuwait. These restrictions turned out to be less stringent than initially thought, upon which the Japanese ships became longer. Also, following the Scandinavian model, these had three decks below deck, with two decks able to accommodate two-high containers, although these have to be placed with large forklifts which is therefore labour-intensive. On the main deck, containers could be placed directly by container cranes.

In 1995, the ship was sold to United States Maritime Administration where, as “Cape Knox”, it became part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet. Ro-ro vessel ‘Cape Knox’ is still in service, performing military equipment transports from North America to various parts of the world.

I made my own scale model from an existing kit. This model is painted in the colours of the time when Nedlloyd was the owner and operator of the vessel.

©wikipedia

Model kit “Nedlloyd Rouen”

“Nedlloyd Rouen” ©shipspotting.com

“Cape Knox ©shipspotting.com