ZIM's Gold Star Line Roll on Roll off ship arrived directly from the east and made its inaugural docking at Ashdod Port. The ship arrived with thousands of vehicles from the Far East – China, South Korea, and Sri Lanka.
ZIM is significantly expanding its vehicle shipping activity globally, including in Israel, with roll-on roll-off (RoRo) ships. Gold Star Line is ZIM's first RoRo ship to arrive in Ashdod directly from the east. In February a Grimaldi ship was the first to take a direct route from the east to Ashdod, carrying 630 vehicles. Ashdod Port is expecting many more RoRo ships to dock at the Port soon, with the opening of more direct lines from the east.
The Gold Star Line ship unloaded 2,750 vehicles, including passenger cars, buses and mechanical engineering equipment intended for the Israeli industrial sector (bulldozers, work vehicles, etc.). From afar, the ship looks like a floating garage, with the ship's interior and its 11 decks serving as a huge parking lot, with each vehicle placed in a safe manner according to its dimensions.
The ship's dimensions are quite impressive, with a maximum capacity of 5,500 vehicles, a height of 32 meters, a length of 182.8 meters and width of 31.5 meters. The RoRo ship and all of ZIM's fleet of Gold Star Line ships, are designed to reduce their carbon footprint by adopting cleaner fuel alternatives and employing energy-saving technologies.
Dan Hoffmann, Executive VP of Intra Asia Trade at ZIM, who is also responsible for vehicle shipping: “We are excited to dock at Ashdod Port for the first time, with a vehicle carrier ship that arrived directly from Asia. Over the last year ZIM significantly expanded its activity in the vehicle shipping sector to ports all over the globe. The company is presently operating 15 ships of this type, and we plan on further growth in this sector, in which there is a significant increase in demand."
Eli Bar-Yosef, Acting CEO of Ashdod Port: “We thank ZIM for choosing to dock their RoRo ship at Ashdod Port and we appreciate the change in import policy that allows for ships to arrive directly from the east. We are constantly working hard to make our port more competitive and effective in all areas. We are looking forward to seeing more RoRo ships among the numerous ships docking at our port, providing further evidence of customer satisfaction".
