Inside the World’s Biggest Container Ship Ever Built

Inside the World’s Biggest Container Ship Ever Built

this is the MSC Arena the largest container ship in the world with the capacity to carry 24, 346 containers this vessel has the greatest carrying capacity of any cargo ship ever made but with such a huge size there are some downsides that actually limit her operations and control where she and other vessels like her can go which begs the question of whether bigger is always better massive container ships like the MSC Arena which just entered service last year are starting to become an industry Trend in fact since the Advent of containerized shipping in the 1950s the average size of cargo capacity on these ships has increased by an astronomical 29,000 per. but why do shippers want to keep building bigger and bigger ships to move cargo from one place to another is very expensive first there are the transport costs to get the goods to Port these costs include the wages paid to truck drivers Railway workers Warehouse employees and others who get good support then you have the long shoremen or people who load and unload ships crane operators truck drivers and other support staff in Port for the ship itself there are also docking fees port fees water fees Shore power fees trash fees and pilotage fees that get the ship out to sea once out to seea the shipping company must also pay wages for its crew fuel for its engines and insurance on all its cargo these costs are then repeated once the ship pulls into another Port while not all of these expenses are a direct burden on the shipping companies like the cost to transport the goods to the port they are all interconnected to one another since if Transportation costs go up the cost of the goods go up and the shipping company pays higher insurance premiums as a result of all these interconnected costs the shipping industry has been building bigger and bigger ships over the past few decades to essentially cut costs by delivering things in bolk but how does the industry measure big and what is considered a big cargo vessel before diving into how cargo ships are classed describing how they are classified is important on top of any container ship one will undoubtably see hundreds if not thousands of different colored metal boxes these metal boxes are 20t long and can be carried by one truck as a result the industry adopted the standard of the 20ft equivalent unit or te to measure a container vessel’s carrying capacity so how does the industry classify cargo ships beginning with the smallest class of cargo ships are the feeder ships feeder ships have a capacity of between 300 to 1,000 teus and serve a vital function in the shipping industry these vessels move cargo from small ports to larger Regional ones that larger container ships can then unload a good example from the US could be feeder ships going from hopwell Virginia to the international terminal in norfol Virginia The Next Step Up from feeders ships is the feeder Max feeder Max generally applies to feeder ships with a Max limit of 3,000 teus these ships are used to carry more goods from one large port to another a good Us West Coast example could be carrying goods from San Diego California up the coast to Long Beach California to be unloaded there once feeder Ships Take cargo to the port larger container ships then accept the deliveries for transport to their final destination these ships could include ultra-large container vessels that can fit 10,000 or more teus of freight the cargo could also end up on what are called megax cargo vessels megax container vessels of which the MSC Arena classified as one are container ships that can carry 18,000 or more te use of cargo megax container ships make up a massive part of the global shipping industry with just 179 vessels currently in service they can haul a mindboggling 4.1 million teus which is more than half of the 7.2 million teus the industry can carry each day once these ships leave port there are then some restrictions on where they can go the most famous of these are the panamax and neopanamax limits panamax refers to the old limit on the Panama Canal which restricted ships to 965 ft long 106 ft wide and a draft of 39.5 ft along with a 5,000 teu limit however after the Panamanian government spent billions of dollars to increase the size of the Panama Canal the new limit with the bigger locks is now 1,200 ft long 16.7 ft wide and 50 ft deep with a 12,000 teu limit however Panama is not the only country with such limits all over the world different Straits and waterways have limits on the size of vessels that can travel through them including the Suez Canal The Straits of malaka and the Straits of Dover each of these waterways has limits on things like length draft and width that can limit which ships can Transit through them so how does all this affect megax container ships one of the first and most obvious examples of the restrictions these massive vessels face is just the ability to get into and out of port for a vessel to safely navigate from sea to Port most of the time cities have to dredge a channel to allow for safe passage a channel is a man-made Waterway created using dredges to scoop up sand and mud to allow ships to pass through since a vessel’s draft is how low it sits in the water because of the ever increasing sizes of container ships it is recommended that for a port to accept a neopanamax or higher ship the port P needs a Channel of at least 50 ft while some major port cities like New York Miami norfol and Charleston have achieved this feat it is very expensive and timeconsuming to do so because of this many smaller ports simply cannot spend the money of dredging large enough channels to accept larger vessels and in fact some vessels are so large that almost no Port can accept them for example if the MSC Arena wanted to pull into the us the only ports her captain could choose from would be the Port of Long Beach in California or the Port of Seattle in Washington state no other channel can fit the arena in the Continental us but even if more ports could the port infrastructure may also not be there once the ship pulls into Port they have to tie up to the pier at 1,312 FT long the MSC Arena would simply be too big to tie up safely to almost any pier in the US or in the world for that matter just like the channels building peers is timec consuming and expensive in addition smaller ports may not even have the se- space to build bigger peers without blocking other traffic as a result even with deeper channels these ports can’t accommodate bigger ships another infrastructure piece to think about are bridges many ports are located inside major cities that sometimes have large bridges connecting parts of the city together notable us examples include cities like Baltimore New York City and San Diego expanding these Bridges again costs a lot of time and money but also shutting down bridges for extended periods of time can hurt local economies Additionally the local areas geography May preclude bigger Bridges to keep them safe for vehicle traffic as a result of all these infrastructure challenges many ports simply do not have the money space or capacity to expand to accommodate these larger ships but these are not the only problems large container vessels face in addition to infrastructure issues getting into an out of port these vessels face several geopolitical challenges Chief among these is piracy despite common misconception piracy remains alive and well today especially Around the Horn of Africa and along the West African Coast as well as parts of Indonesia Pirates and terrorist groups consider container vessels of 8,000 teus or greater Prime targets due to the value of the cargo they hold in the worst case of one of these vessels being hijacked which has happened numerous times over the past decade shippers often pay millions of dollars in ransom for the ship and her crew since it is much cheaper than what the goods are worth conversely if a company wants to avoid paying ransoms they must pay for armed security on board vessels instead these armed security guards are great at deterring most pirates but are very expensive Ive because of this megax ships like the MSC Arena face higher costs depending on where in the world they travel another geopolitical concern is limiting where these ships can pull into Port the current main routes these megax ships take are from Asia to Europe and back though things are stable for China now geopolitical pressures from the EU and US regarding trade Wars with China sanctions on Russia or other geopolitical maneuvering can shut down access to these main trade routes with no destination to take their cargo to these ships could effectively become useless however geopolitical wrangling is not the only danger the economy could also Force many Builders to abandon megax ships to prevent them from getting any bigger the case in point here was the covid-19 pandemic during the pandemic despite major ports expanding and operating 24 hours a day there were still delays in getting Goods into port and to their final destination as a result many cities that had previously had a very minimal commercial shipping industry began creating infrastructure to accept cargo ships as a result of this diversification the major shipping hubs are no longer the only players on the Block instead cities that had no commercial shipping infrastructure even six or seven years ago are becoming Regional powerhouses this shift is sending more ships to smaller ports to prevent bottlenecks there has actually been a boom in the 5,000 to 10,000 teu ship sizes and a way from ultra-large container ships so considering all those negatives will we ever see a limit on the size of a container ship though there may be some ships that inch ever slightly bigger than MSC Arena the shipping industry as a whole is going to move away from building bigger and bigger ships of course there is undoubtedly a need for large ships like her and they will continue to serve for generations to come however it is not likely the industry will ever see something like a 2 foot cargo ship or one that can carry 50,000 teus since there truly is a limit on just how big a ship can be and that limit has almost been reached bye for now

The Largest Container Ship In The World Has A Giant Issue. These vessels have continually gotten bigger and bigger over the years to the point that they have actually started to run into problems. This video will look at how these massive ships are quantified and then delve into the issues they face being so big.

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