With the christening of the new container ship Vicente Pinzón, the Hamburg Süd subsidiary AlianÒ«a has momentarily completed the expansion and modernisation of its cabotage fleet. In the past two years, AlianÒ«a has launched a total of six newbuildings for its cabotage services, four of which feature a slot capacity of 3,800 TEU each and two with 4,800 TEU each. All newbuildings have set new standards in the Brazilian coastal routes in terms of their capacity and environmental friendliness.

The christening took place on 20 June in front of some 500 guests at the Terminal Marítimo de Passageiros in the Port of Santos. This port is not only by far the most important for the shipping group in South America in terms of the number of transports, Santos is also the No. 1 in the worldwide liner network.

The Vicente Pinzón and its sister ship Bartolomeu Dias, which was christened in April, are the largest vessels to ever be deployed by Aliança in its Brazilian coastal routes " with around 4,800 TEU each (including 600 reefer slots). The ship is named after the Spanish seafarer and explorer Vicente Yáñez Pinzón, who reached the Brazilian coast on 26 January 1500 in what is today Pernambuco.

The ship's sponsor is Maria do Rosário Fischer, the daughter-in-law of AlianÒ«a's founder Carl Fischer, who died in 1980. Frank Smet, Member of the Executive Board of Hamburg Süd, and the shipping group's regional management for Region South America East Coast took part in the christening.