Container ship Totally Explained

Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.

History

The earliest container ships were converted tankers, built up from surplus tanker T-2's after World War II. The first container ship was the Ideal-X, a converted T-2 tanker, owned by Malcom McLean, which carried 58 metal containers between Newark, New Jersey and Houston, Texas on its first voyage, in April 1956. Now container ships are all purpose-built and as a class are second only to crude oil tankers as the biggest cargo ships on the oceans.

Construction

Container ships are designed in such a manner that no space is wasted. Their capacity is measured in TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units), the number of 20-foot containers (each 20x8½x8½, or 6x2.6x2.6m) a vessel can carry, even though the majority of containers used today are 40 feet (12m) in length. Above a certain size, container ships don't carry their own loading gear, so loading and unloading can only be done at ports with the necessary cranes. However, smaller ships with capacities up to 2,900 TEUs are often equipped with their own cranes.
Informally known as "box ships," they carry the majority of the world's dry cargo, meaning manufactured goods. Cargoes like metal ores or coal or wheat are carried in bulk carriers. There are large main line vessels that ply the deep sea routes, then many small "feeder" ships that supply the large ships at centralized hub ports. Most container ships are propelled by diesel engines, and have crews of between 20 and 40 people. They generally have a large accommodation block at the stern, directly above the engine room. Container ships now carry up to 15,000 containers (equivalent to 75 100-car double-stack intermodal freight trains) on a voyage.

Shipyards

Large container ships (over 7,000 TEUs) have been built in the following shipyards:

Odense Steel Shipyard, Denmark
Hyundai Heavy Industries, South Korea
Samsung Heavy Industries, South Korea
Daewoo Heavy Industries, South Korea
IHI, Kure, Japan
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nagasaki, Japan
Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, Shanghai, China

Risks

As of the new M/V Emma Mærsk they can carry up to 12,000 containers, the total value of cargo per vessel can reach $300 million. The ceaseless transit of these containers (at any given time, between 5 million and 6 million units) entails a great deal of risk.
Some of the risks are linked to the loading and unloading of containers. The risks involved in these operations affect both the cargo being moved onto or off the ship, as well as the ship itself. Containers, due to their fairly nondescript nature and the sheer number handled in major ports, require complex organization to ensure they're not lost, stolen or misrouted. In addition, as the containers and the cargo they contain make up the vast majority of the total weight of a cargo ship, the loading and unloading is a delicate balancing act, as it directly affects the centre of mass for the whole ship. There have been some instances where a poorly loaded ship has capsized at the pier as a result.
Maneuvers in the port managed by the control tower may be dangerous. In open sea, storms can cause loss of containers. The great value of merchandise on these vessels makes them a target for hijackers. Well-organized piracy remains a threat in places such as Indonesia.

Specificities

Cargo too big to carry in containers can be handled using flat racks, open top containers and platforms. There are also container ships called roll-on/roll-off (RORO), which utilize shore-based ramp systems for loading and unloading. ROROs are usually associated with shorter trade routes, as they're unable to carry the volume of crane-based container vessels. However, due to their flexibility and high speed, ROROs are frequently used in today's container markets. Moreover due to the growth of the containers transit, companies must manage container ship risks.

Future

Economies of scale have dictated an upward trend in sizes of container ships in order to reduce costs. One limit on ship size is the "Suezmax" standard, or the largest theoretical ship capable of passing through the Suez Canal, which measures 14,000 TEUs. Such a vessel would displace 137,000 DWT, be 400 meters long, more than 50 meters wide, have a draft of nearly 15 metres, and use more than 85 MW (113,987hp) to achieve 25.5 knots, specifications met by the Emma Mærsk.
Beyond Suezmax lies the "Malaccamax" (for Straits of Malacca) ship of 18,000 TEUs, displacing 300,000 DWT, 470 meters long, 60 meters wide, 16 meters of draft, and using more than 100 MW (134,102hp) for 25.5 knots. This is most likely the limit before a major restructuring of world container trade routes. The biggest constraint of this design, the absence of a capable single engine, has been overcome by the MAN B&W K108ME-C.
The ultimate problem was the absence of a manufacturer capable of producing the propeller needed for transmitting this power, which would be about 10 metres in diameter, and weigh 130 tonnes. One has since been built for the Emma Mærsk by Mecklenburger Metallguss GmbH in Waren, Germany. Other constraints, such as time in port and flexibility of service routes are similar to the constraints that eventually limited the growth in size of supertankers.

Largest ships

Built	Name	Sisterships	Length o.a.	Beam	Maxium TEU	GT	Owners	Flag
2006	Emma Mærsk	6	397.7 m	56.4 m	14,500	151,687	Maersk Line	Denmark
2005	Gudrun Mærsk	5	367.3 m	42.8 m	10,150	97,933	Maersk Line	Denmark
2006	Xin Los Angeles	6	336.7 m	45.6 m	9,600	107,200	CSCL	Hong Kong
2006	Cosco Guangzhou	4	350 m	42.8 m	9,450	99,833	Cosco	Greece
2006	CMA CGM Medea	3	350 m	42.8 m	9,415	99,500	CMA CGM	France
2003	Axel Mærsk	5	352.6 m	42.8 m	9,310	93,496	Maersk Line	Denmark
2006	NYK Vega	2	338.2 m	45.6 m	9,200		Nippon Yusen Kaisha	Panama
2005	MSC Pamela	5	336.7 m	45.6 m	9,178	90,500	MSC	Liberia
2006	MSC Madeleine	1	348.5 m	42.8 m	9,100	107,551	MSC	Liberia
2006	Hannover Bridge	2	336 m	45.8 m	9,040	89,000	K Line	Japan

World's busiest container ports of call

Rank	ort	ountry	EUs(1000s)	/- from 2004	change from 2004
1	Singapore	Singapore	24,800	1,608	6.93
2	Hong Kong	People's Republic of China	23,234	0,632	2.80
3	Shanghai	People's Republic of China	21,718	3,626	20.5
4	Shenzhen	People's Republic of China	18,468	2,771	14.2
5	Busan	South Korea	11,840	0,349	2.95
6	Kaohsiung	Taiwan (Republic of China)	9,471	0,424	6.54
7	Rotterdam	Netherlands	9,300	1,000	12.05
8	Hamburg	Germany	8,086	1,084	13.40
9	Dubai	United Arab Emirates	7,619	1,190	15.63
10	Los Angeles	United States of America	7,485	0,164	2.19

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