As with the earlier orders they have been splitbetween Shin Kurushima Dockyard and Japan MarineUnited Corporation.

The Japanese shipowner said deliveries arescheduled to start in 2015 and continue through the first quarter of 2017.

“By adding this series of eight new shipswith better stability and better fuel efficiency, we continue to deliver improvedefficiency while expanding our ability to handling a wider variety of cargo mix,”K Line said.

The series of eight car carriers will be the widestsuch vessels built to date with a beam of 37 meters with 7,500-unit capacity.

KLine had said previously that the length of the vessels is being kept at200 meters to enable them to call at any port.

“Wehave spent a considerable length of time studying and investigating the mostsuitable next generation car carrier with shipyards,” Yoshiyuki Aoki, executivemanaging officer, of K Line’s car carrier sector said at the time of the firstorders.

“Wehave appointed two shipyards and are adopting state of the art design in termsof fuel efficiency and flexibility on cargo handling that will be far better thanour existing fleet.”

“Thewider beam has come as a result of a series of simulation tests, exploring bothbetter stability of the vessel and better fuel efficiency at the same time.”

Anothertechnical point being addressed with these new ships is cargo loading equipmentinside of the cargo hold and loading ramp in order to make them suitable fornot only passenger cars but also other ro-ro cargoes.