We might be wondering by now what Maersk have been up to since one of their vessels was last described in this feature, which was the Maersk Fighter which entered service in 1992. They had actually been building a number of anchor-handlers derived from the ME 303, designated the ME 606 and then the ME 909, mostly known as the Maersk B Class. These designs were to culminate in what was known as the Maersk A Class, starting with the Maersk Assister in 2000 (Photographed entering Aberdeen in 2001 by George Craigen). The class was larger and more powerful than anything Maersk had so far produced and were briefly the most powerful and probably the largest anchor-handlers afloat at 90 metres long; they contained nine decks between the main deck and the bridge but no elevator. The four MAK engines produced 23,500 bhp, giving them a bollard pull of 278 tons and the multiple forward and aft thrusters were capable of providing 6000 bhp sideways. All these systems could be controlled by a DP2 system provided by Kongsberg. The winch which was electrically powered, a Maersk innovation while everyone else was still putting their faith in low pressure hydraulics, was capable of a pull of 625 tons, leading the manufacturers of fabricated anchors to issue guidance as to how much force should be used to get them over the roller, this after the ships had bent a few. In addition, when they came out, a workdrum capacity of 12000m x 84mm wire, and a capacity of 2600m x 84mm wire, was claimed for each of the two tow drums, although I have noticed that ship-owners are tending not to tell us about drum capacity these days. However, I have been on board the Maersk Assister and can confirm that the winch is very large indeed. In typical Maersk style the whole thing is housed in a great big hanger and is viewed from the bridge on CCTV. The problems of paying out the wires under tension, which had made previous attempts to power winches electrically impractical, has apparently been overcome by using electrical resistance and dissipating the heat through vents on either side of the winch space. The Assister was followed into service by the Maersk Achiever, the Maersk Asserter and the Maersk Advancer in 2003 and the Maersk Winner in 2004, all of them being constructed at the Volkswerft yard in Germany. In order to make them suitable for multiple activities the ships have accommodation for 60 people and several have subsequently fitted with large cranes for the field maintenance activities. The Winner in particular was fitted with a 200 tonne crane capable of working at depths of 2000 metres when it entered service and has accommmodation for 86 people.