Much of the world economy moves by boat. It is estimated that between 80% and 90% of the merchandise trade around the world is transported by boat, and to sustain that spine, we need huge ships. There, the containers, authentic titans who seem a lie that are kept on the water and that are capable of transporting, of a tacada, a couple of tens of thousands of large containers, come into play. There are no larger ships than the “new” Megamax class.
And within it is one who has just burst the transport record: the One Innovation.
Megamax. It is the largest class of modern boring partners. It emerged as a natural evolution of the ULCV, or ‘Ultra Large Container Vessels’, because it seems that wearing 20,000 TEU was not enough for current trade. Teu means ‘Twenty-Foot Equivalent Unit’, a standard for containers that allows us to compare between ships and that means that if a ship can transport 20,000 TEU, it can move 20,000 containers.
If the ULCV moved that amount, the megamax can between 21,000 and 25,000 TEU, being able to load 24 rows of containers … wide. It is an absolute barbarity and is touching the limit of what a channel like Suez’s can house: if they were wider, accidents could occur or, directly, not pass through the channel. And taking into account the importance of these few points in world trade, or widen the tickets, or accommodate the ships …
One Innovation. It is the name of the third type of largest container in the world. Its capacity is 24,136 TEU and is only behind the OOCL Spain (and the rest of the OOCL Megamax class) with its 24,188 TEU and the MSC Irina (and the rest of the MSC Megamax) with its enormous capacity for 24,346 TEU. To house so many load, the dimensions are up to it:
- 399.95 meters long.
- 61.4 meters wide.
- Depth of 33.2 meters.
- 16.5 meter draft.
It’s like an Empire State Building, but horizontally and floating. And it has the ability to transport 25 container levels (imagine a container pyramid, go), with 24 rows along, another 24 wide and 2,000 of those containers having connection with cooling systems.
The other ships look like toy
Record. Reaching the maximum capacity of each ship is complex. In fact, the three mentioned are extremely similar in size, but that one can with 200 containers more than another respond to issues of logistics and internal organization rather than to the dimensions of the ship. How to play a game of ‘tetris’ supeopimized, ultimately.
Well, despite being the one that has the most capacity, the One Innovation has just beat the capacity record on a trip. Again. If a couple of years ago he already set the 22,000 TEU brand, this September he did it again with 22,233 Teu loaded in a single operation in the port of Singapore (one of the most important on the planet).
Complex logistics. In terms of capacity, it represents 92% of their maximum, so they can continue experimenting to load even more. Now, this is not something that can be done in any port. The One Innovation is designed for the Asia-Europa route, being able to stop in strategic ports such as Xiamen, Singapore, Rotterdam, Southampton or Algeciras.
It is a connection between the main Asian and European centers, for which a very specific machinery is needed that manages to load and download huge amounts of containers. And this is something that not all ports are designed or can face. We talk about channels about 20 meters deep, cranes of about 70 meters of range and lengths between 450 and 500 meters so that ships can dock. That without counting the necessary defenses in case there are accidents or calculation failures.
Necessary (and we will surely go more). As we say, ships of this size are necessary and are constantly used both by efficiency when moving a lot of merchandise of a tacada and its energy efficiency. Instead of making multiple trips, in one and thanks to that massive capacity, it can move load through the world.
In addition, they seem essential if the wishes of the ‘new silk route’ that China is promoting to create more efficient trade routes between Asia and Europe, but also with Africa, region in which China has huge interests both for their resources and to enhance markets and that of cars.
Images | Shotbyp4ul, Kees Torn
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