Type C7 ship

The Type C7 ship (Lancer Class) is a United States Maritime Administration (MARAD) designation for a cargo ship and the first purpose-built container ship. The vessels were constructed in US shipyards and entered service starting in 1968. As US-built ships they were Jones Act qualified for shipments between US domestic ports. Under the Jones Act domestic US maritime trade is restricted to US-built and flagged vessels of US owners and manned by predominantly US-citizen crews. The last active Lancer container configured ships were operated as late as 2014 by Horizon Lines. Lancers of the vehicle Roll-on/Roll-off (RO/RO) configuration remain held in the Ready Reserve Force, National Defense Reserve Fleet and the US Navy Military Sealift Command. All are steam powered.

Eight Type C7-S-68 ships were built by Sun Shipbuilding for the United States Lines and entered service from 1968 to 1971. Upon the bankruptcy and dissolution of the company the ships were sold to other carriers. The design proved very reliable as all of the Lancer Class vessels operated until at least 2002. In October 2014 the last active '68 series Lancer Horizon Discovery, was delivered to the Bay Bridge Scrapyard in Brownsville, Texas. "..the Lancers revolutionized shipping as being the first true large (at that time) container ships. [They were] built for U.S. Lines and ran on the East Coast to Far East run for many years...Discovery also served in Desert Storm. Her keel was laid exactly 47 years ago on 10/26/1967..It has been an honor taking this grand ole girl to her final resting place. She sure had a good run for many years. Instead of going down kicking and screaming she ran proud and well right to the very end and went down easy." - Captain Bill Boyce

Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point Shipyard constructed two C7-S-88a container ships for San Francisco, CA-based Pacific Far East Line (PFEL). These two ships were actually designed for and ordered by Matson Navigation, but when Matson decided to discontinue its transpacific operations the two ships were taken over by PFEL while still under construction. PFEL's ship names ended with Bear, and the two new ships were launched as SS Australia Bear and SS New Zealand Bear. Australia Bear was completed in 1973, but before New Zealand Bear had been fully outfitted both ships were sold in 1974 to Sea-Land Service, Inc. and renamed Sea-Land Consumer and Sea-Land Producer as Sealand's SL18P class. Sea-Land was bought by the CSX Corporation in 1986, and both ships were renamed in 2000. The domestic U.S. liner operations of Sea-Land were sold in 2003 and subsequently operated under the name Horizon Lines. In March 2014 Horizon Producer was delivered to Zhoushan, China, presumably to be scrapped; however, following the sale of Horizon Lines to Matson Navigation, the vessel was returned to the US West Coast and is currently in reserve status in Tacoma and has been renamed Matson Producer.

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