At a festive ceremony at Odense Steel Shipyard on Saturday 27 January 2001, the namegiving of a large, modern postpanamax container vessel took place.


Odense Steel Shipyard’s newbuilding No. 180 was named by Ms Cecilie Mærsk Mc-Kinney Arnesen, who was accompanied by a.o. her mother, Mrs Leise Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, and her grandparents, shipowner Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller and wife Mrs Emma Mc-Kinney Møller. The newbuilding was named CHASTINE MÆRSK after the sponsor’s great grandmother, Chastine Estelle Mc-Kinney, shipowner A.P. Møller’s wife, who was born in the USA.


The 347 metres long and 43 metres wide ship CHASTINE MÆRSK has a container capacity of 6,600 TEU and is the fifth and so far largest newbuilding from Odense Steel Shipyard carrying this name. The first three were dry cargo vessels of approx. 9,000 tdw and were all built at the old Odense yard. The fourth was a container vessel, which was delivered from Odense Steel Shipyard in 1991.


From the beginning of February CHASTINE MÆRSK will enter Maersk Sealand’s world-wide service, which serves over 100,000 customers. The homeport of CHASTINE MÆRSK is Hellerup, where A.P. Møller and his wife had their home. Mayor Hans Toft represented Hellerup at the namegiving.


CHASTINE MÆRSK has a crew of 15 and is commanded by Captain Poul B. Hansen, Svendborg, with Michael Nielsen, Tåstrup as Chief Engineer.