WELLARD’s MV Ocean Swagman completed its 100th voyage when it shipped a full load of 6000 breeding dairy cattle from the Port of Portland, Victoria, to China last month.
The MV Ocean Swagman was last in WA when it docked in Fremantle in late July and transported a shipment of sheep to the Middle East.
The vessel was launched in 2009 and its maiden voyage was in January 2010.
It has the capacity to transport 6000 cattle or 25,000 sheep, or a combination of both.
The MV Ocean Swagman is a mid-sized livestock vessel with a revolutionary Dual Independent Propulsion System, comprising dual engine rooms and propellers, delivering handling rarely seen in cruise liners and never before built into livestock vessels.
Since its launch, the vessel has travelled 690,074 nautical miles (almost 1.3 million kilometres) which is equivalent to almost 30 laps of the world at the Equator.
On those voyages it visited 282 ports (including multi-port loading, multi-port discharge, refuel and dry dock).
“When it was launched, the MV Ocean Swagman was heralded as the next generation in livestock design and vessel construction,” Wellard executive director of operations Fred Troncone said.
“The vessel has lived up to those expectations, with excellent voyage success rates and weight gains – a product of content livestock passengers and high performance of the air, water and food livestock services on board.”
The MV Ocean Swagman’s advanced ventilation system fans an average of 110 air changes per hour, four times the number of air changes per hour on a commercial airliner, so the 540,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep that travelled on the vessel on its 100 voyages to date travelled in comfort – consuming more than 50,000 tonnes of fodder in the process.
The MV Ocean Swagman has been classified by the Registro Italiano Navale (RINA) as a ‘Green Star Vessel’, due to its low emissions and pollution prevention design and systems.
Wellard tested the market for the potential sale of the MV Ocean Swagman last year, along with the MV Ocean Outback which it sold for $17.6 million, but no decision has been made on its sale to date.
The vessel has 34 crew.
It can travel at a speed of 17 knots and is 130 metres in length and 21.6m wide.
From keel to mast height is 24 metres and it has a livestock area of 8000m2.
It has a fresh water capacity of two million litres (almost equivalent of an Olympic sized swimming pool) and a system that can produce 320,000 litres of fresh water per day from four reverse osmosis desalination plants.
The vessel has a fodder capacity 1500t in two tanks.
