Shipyards worldwide interested in building ships to replace Greek Liberty ships according to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant dated 17 January 1967

Liberty EC 2 cargo ship design

An item reported reported that British shipbuilders arrived in Athens, Greece as part of the race for getting the orders voor replacing 200 Greek Liberty ships. Dutch, German and a Japanese-Canadian combinatie were also involved in this race. The during the Second World War ships dumped with hundreds after the war on the freight market were now after more as 20 years of intensive use to be scrapped. Estimates costs of replacement in the next 10 years around 1.5 milliard guilders. The interested shipyards which notice the aging came with new designs. The British design had a displacement of 14,200 tons and a speed of 15 knots. The Japanese-Candadian design 13,600 tons and 14 knots and the German design 14,520 tons and 15 knots. The Dutch office Sea Transport Engineering N.V. (combination of the Verenigde Machinefabrieken and KNSM founded in 1966) was to present a Dutch design. (1) Her director W. Beets mentioned an Unity-ship design of around 14,000 tons and a maximum price of around 10 million guilders. The crew was to be downsized to a minimum with the support of automation for efficiency and reducing business operations costs.

Note

1. Koninklijke Nederlandse Stoomboot-Maatschappij, Amsterdam, Netherlands. Verenigde Machine Fabrieken (VMF).