SIMIC

The four 8,600 TEU ships - the CSAV Tyndall, CSAV Toconao, CSAV Traiguen and CSAV Trancura - controlled by Zodiac Maritime and Eastern Pacific have been sold and chartered on to the Danish shipping company. No details on the sale prices nor the charter rates have been revealed.

The first three ships have been sold to JP Morgan, while the Eastern Pacific unit has gone to XT Shipping of Israel, according to Alphaliner. The ships were built in 2013 and 2014 at Daewoo's Mangalia yard in Romania.

The four ships are likely to be renamed when they come off hire from Hapag-Lloyd and move to Maersk, marking the disappearance of the CSAV prefix from containership names, these four units being the last to carry the initials of the Chilean shipping line, Compania Sud Americana de Vapores, which merged with Hapag-Lloyd in 2014.

Maersk's naming traditions tend to mean a ship with a prefix Maersk is chartered in, while a ship where the name Maersk appears second signifies it is owned by the Danish carrier.

Maersk has been active in the extremely interesting box ship chartering markets this month. Maersk set new charter highs recently - or extending - three 4,600 TEU classic panamaxes controlled by V Ships Hamburg, the Northern Priority, Northern Promotion and Northern Precision, for period employments of 24 to 27 months at US$35,000 a day, according to Alphaliner. Maersk has also chartered another two classic panamaxes this month - the 4,253 TEU Xiamen and the 4,252 TEU Nagoya Tower, both from Zodiac Maritime for 30 months at $32,000 a day.