Spirit of Auckland Arrives Baltimore December 22, 2018

Who owns this 254x32m (833.33×104.99ft) ship is a bit of a mystery. According to BalticShipping.com it is owned by Rickmers Shipmanagement. However looking through the fleet list of their what appears to be subsidiaries, Hamburg, Germany based Rickmers Line and Singapore based Zeaborn Ship Management this ship’s name doesn’t show up. Containership-info.com lists E.R Shiffahrt as the owner and Hamburg Sud as the operator. A press release on Zeaborn’s website dating August 13, 2018 indicates that E.R. Shiffahrt and Rickmers Shipmanagement have been consolidated into Zeaborn which clears some things up. It could be the reason that it doesn’t show up on any fleet lists is that they simply haven’t updated their lists yet. She was built in 2007 by Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. LTD in Geoje, South Korea.
I also came across this interesting travelogue about a couple who took a 36 day trip on this ship from Melbourne, Australia to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 2017. I think I would enjoy taking a shorter trip aboard a freighter someday.
In the video below you’ll see this ship being helped in by tugs April Moran and Annabelle Dorothy Moran and also have a pilot delivered by pilot boat Maryland. For best results watch in FULL SCREEN. You may need to watch for 20+ seconds before full resolution kicks in.

This is the only ship I saw this day but the tugboats participated in a 17 minute long video of tugboats I saw over the course of several days.
 

You can view my photography (more than just ships!) here and more videos here.