Built in Gallipoli for Turkish interests, she could carry 486 containers and had two 40 tonne cranes, as well as a service speed of 15.5 knots. But her 6.5m draft meant she could never load to full capacity at Onehunga, where the maximum draft limit was 6m.
She arrived in New Zealand waters in September 2000, and operated on the east coast for the first six months of her charter by Pacifica Shipping. During the first two months of this period, she was still officially named "Aksoy Truva", even though "Spirit Of Enterprise" was the name which appeared on port schedules - the ship couldn't physically be renamed until permission came through from her Turkish owners in Istanbul!
From April 2001, she operated a fortnightly cycle in tandem with "Spirit Of Resolution", which went along the lines of Onehunga - Lyttelton - Dunedin - Lyttelton - Tauranga - Auckland - Lyttelton - Nelson - Onehunga, with New Plymouth thrown in as required.
The "Turkish Delight", as she was nicknamed, proved to be anything but for Pacifica Shipping, primarily for her grounding in the Manukau on 28 July 2001, and grounding and the loss of her rudder at the Manukau Heads in 2003, both of which are covered in detail in the Harbour Incidents section of the site.
Her charter was cut short at the end of 2003, and she operated for a variety of clients - surviving another mishap after colliding with a bulk carrier near Singapore in 2004 - before sinking off the coast of Gabon on 18 September 2009 after her engine room flooded.
Information partly sourced from "Spirit Of The Coast - The Story of Pacifica Shipping", by Nick Tolerton
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