A naming ceremony has its formal traditions to follow, and the day started with a ‘Pre-naming party’ at Donghua Mansion before the invited guests proceeded to the yard.
On the quayside, President of Hudong-Zhonghua Chen Jun and Chairman Laurence Odfjell both delivered a speech, highlighting the significance of the newbuilds and the important contributions from all parties involved.
Selected quotes from the Chairman’s speech:
“Our customers require predictability and reliability: Their products need to arrive on time and on specification. Otherwise their production line can be interrupted. Odfjell takes pride in delivering high quality services.
This is appreciated by our customers – many have been with us for more than 30 years. However, we do not take customer loyalty for granted. Loyalty is something that we have to earn and we earn it through safe and reliable operations day after day, year after year.”
“Building the world’s largest chemical tanker is not a task that we would trust anyone. Your ship yard was carefully selected based on your reputation and based on the quality of your past ship deliveries.These fine ladies shall sail for at least 25 years. This requires high quality performance in all elements of your production line. From what we have experienced, Hudong Ship Yard is delivering such quality.”
“I would also like to thank the site team for their thorough follow-up of the various building processes. You are the ship owner’s representative on site. It is your job to verify that the vessels are built to our specifications and requirements. This is a job that you have done to our full satisfaction.”
The ceremony continued with the Lady Sponsors Anette Strand and Signy Dame Fotland cutting the ribbon and breaking the champagne for Bow Olympus and Bow Orion respectively. As per tradition, the yard executives presented bouquets and souvenirs to the Lady Sponsors, before the guests continued with an on-board tour of Bow Orion and later a Celebration Luncheon where commemorative gifts were formally presented between the yard executives, the Lady Sponsors, the Captains, and Chairman.
See short video of the ribbon cutting on Facebook.
In the evening, around 80 specially invited guests gathered for Odfjell’s Naming Ceremony Dinner, including the executives from the yard, banking partners, the site team, Odfjell management, and the shipboard management team of the two vessels. The guests enjoyed classical Norwegian piano pieces and speeches from the Lady Sponsors, Global Head of Tanker Trading Bjørn Hammer and COO Harald Fotland.
“We have named the largest stainless-steel chemical tankers ever built. This is certainly not a one-man job. It is the result of joint efforts all the way from the concept discussions, through the drawing board, negotiations about technical solutions and equipment and the construction phase and until today when we can finally witness the end result. The end result certainly is impressive!”
- Harald Fotland, COO
“We have witnessed today that our vessels represent excellent examples of the high standards that Chinese shipbuilding can offer in building highly sophisticated stainless steel chemical tankers. This is evidenced through the in-depth know-how and experience of the skilled workers at Hudong Ship Yard. They have been working closely together with Odfjell’s site team led by Geir, Ian and Tor Arve ,to design, construct and build these magnificent vessels that we today named Bow Orion and Bow Olympic. We would therefore like to thank you all for the work and dedication that you have put into the making of our ships.”
- Lady Sponsors
Bow Olympus is still undergoing the final constructions before planned delivery to Odfjell in October. Bow Orion is about to head out on the next of her very first adventures: The maiden voyage.
The Shipboard Management Teams are:
Bow Orion
Captain Randy Allan Cabiao
Chief Officer Julius Oaferina
Chief Engineer Jennifer Mosqueda
Second Engineer Solomon Salhay
Bow Olympus
Captain Raymond Gjendemsjø
Chief Officer Mathias André Winge
Chief Engineer Jan Tore Knutsen
Second Engineer Arild S. Urang
“The first vessel will enter the Odfjell fleet in a few weeks’ time. I would like to congratulate the officers and crew. Taking out a newbuilding is a rare and special occasion that you may only experience once in your career. Take good care of our new ladies and I wish you safe sailing and success with your new assignments.”
- Harald Fotland, COO
See more photos from the ceremony here.
Click or tap on the image for the photo and video compilation.
The milestone was also celebrated in our offices and onboard. On Bow Sea, the naming competition winner – Chief Officer Ralph Tolentino – got his very own, tailor-made cake:
A few photo moments from the celebrations in Manila, Sao Paulo and Bergen:
Updates on the naming ceremony have also been published on Odfjell.com, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
