February's Horizon containerships report, from Maritime Strategies International (MSI), recorded daily hire benchmarks were broken throughout the month as ocean carriers, shipping lines, and forwarders competed for the same vessels.

The issue facing shipowners is to either take the massive daily hire rates for short to medium periods or take the still-elevated rates from carriers for much longer periods.

Also, owners continue to be surrounded by offers on the S&P market, if they prefer to cash in their assets.

"Pasha Hawaii was the busiest customer in this segment, sweeping up charters for six containerships ranging from 2,700 TEU to 3,500 TEU," said MSI.

The main fixture was a charter of 45 to 55 days for Sea Consortium's 2,743-TEU X-Press Mekong, which was fixed at US$175,000 a day, generating $7.8 million to $9.6 million of charter hire.

Market rates for this ship size rose 7.3 per cent in January to a new record of $77,000 a day.

Meanwhile, MSI's outlook for all sectors is for a softening of rates across the board in the coming quarters from the current highs.

Said The Loadstar's broker source: "What I'm hearing is that we may have reached the peak now,"

"I don't see there being a crash, but there could be a bit of a correction from Q2 onwards as some of the congestion begins to ease."