Mol-Creation

Three of the sisterships of the MOL Comfort, the boxship that split in two in June, have returned to service after undergoing hull strengthening. Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) said the MOL Celebration, MOL Courage, and MOL Creation returned to the service on the Asia – Europe trade on 10 August. The vessels are three out of six sisterships of the five-year old MOL Comfort, which fractured and then split in two in the Indian Ocean on 17 June. The MOL Comfort and its six sisterships were all built at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

The six sister vessels of the stricken MOL Comfort are to be inspected, as the first salvage vessels reach the wreck. In its latest update on the casualty, which saw the five-year boxship MOL Comfort split in two in the Indian Ocean on 17 June, Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) said it had started investigations into the cause of the incident with shipbuilder Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI). There are six sister vessels to the MOL Comfort and MOL said: “Although the cause of this incident has not been identified yet, MOL, together with MHI and the classification society ClassNK, is arranging inspection of the all six sister vessels as quickly as possible.” In addition one vessel is being inspected by the crew while it is underway and the company is taking operational measures to reduce hull stresses on the six vessels. The six sisterships are the MOL Creation, MOL Charisma, MOL Celebration, MOL Courage, MOL Competence, and the MOL Commitment. “We will also conduct a thorough investigation to determine the cause and take company-wide measures aimed at preventing reoccurrence of such incident in the future,” MOL said. http://www.seatrade-global.com/news/asia/inspections-start-of-mol-comfort-sisterships.html