Lyttelton namesake makes maiden voyage to port

An unfamiliar ship with a very familiar name is arriving at Lyttelton Port of Christchurch (LPC) on Friday 24 September on its maiden voyage to the port.

The TPC Lyttelton, a South Korean owned 180m-long double-hulled vessel, is coming to LPC to pick up a shipment of logs destined for North Asia.

The TPC group has a number of vessels operating along New Zealand’s coast named after New Zealand ports including, TPC Napier, TPC Tauranga and TPC Auckland.

Apart from one sailing ship and local tugs, this is only the fifth vessel to be named after Lyttelton Port. There have been two Port Lyttelton's (1916-1924 and 1947-1972), Union Lyttelton (1977-1983) and P&O Nedlloyd Lyttelton (1998-2002).

The near-new TPC Lyttelton was built in July 2010 at Weihai, in the Shandong Province by the Samjin Shipbuilding Industries Co and has a service speed of 14 knots.

It has been a record year for LPC’s log export trade, with a 58.7% increase on last year’s volume. LPC expects New Zealand’s export log boom to continue well into 2011.