Leading tonnage providers Seaspan and Capital Product Partners have wasted no time in securing long-term charters for their latest containership acquisitions.

New York-listed Seaspan has landed charters for two neo-panamax vessels that it bought last month from Singapore-based Pacific International Lines (PIL).

Brokers said the 11,923-teu Kota Petani and Kota Pemimpin (both built 2018), which were bought for about $176m in total, will be employed charters to Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) and Hapag-Lloyd.

The Kota Petani is on charter to Israeli liner operator Zim, deployed on trades between Asia and the US East Coast, until the first quarter of next year.

But Seaspan is understood to have lined up a subsequent long-term bareboat charter with MSC.

Hapag-Lloyd will take the Kota Pemimpin on extension. The vessel is on a two-year charter with the German liner operator in the Asia to East Coast South America trades.

The two vessels were owned by Chinese leasing companies but have been operated in the fleet of Singapore-based PIL, which is pruning its containership fleet.

They are sisters to four other neo-panamax boxships that Seaspan bought from PIL in February.

The 11,923-teu Seaspan Falcon, Seaspan Harrier, Seaspan Raptor (all built 2018) and Seaspan Osprey (built 2017) have been fixed to Japan's Ocean Network Express.

Capital deal

The deals have been done in a market where charter rates for larger boxships continue to rise towards their 2019 peak levels.

Recent fixtures include the 8,400-teu Northern Justice (built 2010) taken for 28 to 30 months by MSC at $28,000 per day.

Separately, Evangelos Marinakis-backed Capital Product Partners is said to have found long-term charters for three classic panamax boxships bought from Germany’s NSC Group.

The 5,085-teu Chicago, Las Vegas and Memphis (all built 2008) were sold in September for a combined price of about $28.5m.

They are understood to have been taken on five-year charters with Hapag-Lloyd at rates of around $12,500 per day.

The high-reefer capacity boxships have been retrofitted with Alternative Maritime Power equipment that will allow cold ironing in ports.

That will enable them to trade to parts of the US where operators need to have a percentage of their capacity equipped for cold ironing, brokers said.

The three vessels remain under the commercial and technical management of Hamburg-based NSC.