Container ship
From Wikivisual
Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.
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[edit] History
Cargo vessels contain a variety of dry goods items that are shipped all over the world, including foods, textiles, and electronics.
Container vessels owe their existence to an American trucker by the name of Malcom McLean. In 1931, McLean purchased his first truck which was used to send and pick up loads to and from vessels in various ports. During this time, while he used to wait impatiently for the truck’s contents to be loaded on to the ship he kept thinking of a more efficient and quick way to load and unload vessels and thus save enormous time and labour.
The earliest container ships were converted tankers, built up from surplus T2 tankers after World War II. In 1951 the first purpose-built container vessels began operating in Denmark, and between Seattle and Alaska.
The first container ship in the United States was the Ideal-X,<ref>Levinson, Marc: "The Box", pg. 1, Princeton University Press, 2006</ref> a T2 tanker, owned by Malcom McLean, which carried 58 metal containers between Newark, New Jersey and Houston, Texas on its first voyage, in April 1956.
In 1955, McLean built his company, McLean Trucking into one of USA’s biggest freighter fleets. All through the decades the idea stayed with him. It was in 1955, that he purchased a small tanker company called Pan Atlantic and adapted its ships to carry cargo in large uniform metal containers. On April 26, 1956, the first of his container vessels, the Ideal X, left the Port of Chicago and a new revolution in modern shipping resulted. Container vessels eliminate the individual hatches, holds and dividers of the traditional general cargo vessels. The hull of a typical container ship is a huge warehouse divided into cells by vertical guide rails. These cells are designed to hold cargo in pre-packed units – containers.
Shipping containers are usually made of aluminium, but other materials like steel, fibreglass or plywood are also used. They are designed to be entirely transferred to and from trains, trucks or trailers to and from a ship. There are several types of containers and they are categorised according to their size and functions.
Today, approximately 90% of non-bulk cargo worldwide is transported by container, and modern container ships can carry up to 15,000 Twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU). As a class, container ships now rival crude oil tankers and bulk carriers as the largest commercial vessels on the ocean.
Coming back to McLean’s invention, while it is a well established fact that containerisation caused a revolution in the world of shipping its introduction did not have an easy passage. Shipping lines, railway (railroad in the US) companies and trade unions vehemently opposed and tried to block the use of containerised ships. It took ten years of legal battles before container ships would be pressed into international service. In 1966, a container liner service from USA to the Dutch city of Rotterdam commenced.
Containerisation changed not only the face of shipping but it also revolutionised world trade as well. A container ship can be loaded and unloaded in a few hours compared to days in a traditional cargo vessel. This, besides cutting labour costs, has reduced shipping times between points to a great extent, for example it takes a few weeks instead of months for a consignment to be delivered from India to Europe and vice versa. It has also resulted in less breakage due to less handling and there is less danger of cargo shifting during a voyage. As containers are sealed and only open at the destination, pilferage and theft levels have been greatly reduced.
This is how containerization works:
Exporters load (stuff) their merchandise in boxes which are provided by the shipping companies. They are then delivered to the docks by road, rail or a combination of both for loading on to container ships. Prior to containerisation, huge gangs of men would spend hours fitting various items of cargo into different holds.
Gigantic cranes lift the containers and they are placed one on top of the other in their respective cells. Once the hull is loaded additional containers are stacked on the deck.
The lower shipping costs and faster movements which resulted due to containerisation has helped global trade grow in leaps and bounds. It is now possible for Americans to eat apples grown in New Zealand and gherkins grown in India. Fresh cut flowers are available at the Amsterdam auction houses in the height of winter. Indians are able to own the latest iphones and laptops as soon as they hit the market. Europeans are able to wear jeans made in Hong Kong. Cargo that once arrived in boxes (cartons or crates), bails, barrels and bags, now comes in factory sealed containers, with no indication to the human eye of their contents, except for a product code that machines can scan and computers trace. This system of tracking has been so exact that a two week voyage can be timed for arrival with an accuracy of under fifteen minutes. It has resulted in such revolutions as, On Time Guaranteed Delivery and Just in Time manufacturing. Containers arrive in factories in sealed containers less than an hour before they are required in manufacture, resulting in huge savings in inventory costs.
The larger container ships measure 210 metres long. They carry loads equal to the cargo carrying capacity of sixteen to seventeen pre WWII freighter ships. Today, every shipping line in the Globe has its fleet of container ships.
[edit] Construction
Container ships are designed in a manner that optimizes space. Capacity is measured in Twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU), the number of standard 20-foot containers measuring 20 × 8.0 × 8.5 feet (6.1 × 2.4 × 2.6 metres) a vessel can carry. This notwithstanding, most containers used today measure 40 feet (12 metres) in length. Above a certain size, container ships do not 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 TEU are often equipped with their own cranes.
Informally known as "box boats," 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, near the engine room. Container ships now carry up to 15,000 TEU (approximately equivalent to 35 100-car double-stack intermodal freight trains) on a voyage. The world's largest container ships, the M/V Emma Mærsk and her sisters, have a capacity of 15,200 containers.<ref>Emma Maersk (PDF)</ref>
In 2008 the South Korean shipbuilder STX announced plans to construct a container ship capable of carrying 22,000 TEU,<ref>"STX reveals design for world's largest containership". SeaTrade Asia. May 2008. http://www.seatradeasia-online.com/News/2668.html. Retrieved 2008-09-10.</ref> and with a proposed length of 450 metres and a beam of 60 metres.<ref>"STX ponders 20,000 TEU boxship". Turkish Maritime. May 2008. http://www.turkishmaritime.com.tr/news_detail.php?id=859. Retrieved 2008-09-10.</ref> If constructed, the container ship would become the largest seagoing vessel in the world.<ref>"New designs on the world's biggest container ships". Shipping Times (Shipping Times UK). 2008-05-28. http://www.shippingtimes.co.uk/item_10082.html. Retrieved 2008-09-10.[dead link]</ref>
[edit] Shipyards
Large container ships (over 7,000 TEU) have been built in the following shipyards:
- Odense Steel Shipyard, Denmark
- Hyundai Heavy Industries, South Korea
- Samsung Heavy Industries, South Korea
- Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., Ltd, South Korea
- IHI, Kure, Japan
- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Nagasaki, Japan
- Hudong-Zhonghua Shipbuilding, Shanghai, China
- Nantong COSCO KHI Ship Engineering, Nantong, China
[edit] Risk
In March 2007, a London based container ship capsized in Antwerp, Belgium while loading.<ref>"Container ship capsizes in Belgian port during cargo loading". International Herald Tribune. 2007-03-08. Archived from the original on 2007-10-13. http://web.archive.org/web/20071013041309/http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/08/europe/EU-GEN-Belgium-Capsized-Container-Ship.php.</ref>
Maneuvers in coastal waters and ports managed in the wheel house may be dangerous, as evidenced by a container ship hitting the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge on November 7, 2007.<ref>Nolte, Carl; Taylor, Michael (2007-11-08). "Ship crashes into Bay Bridge tower, spills fuel oil". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/11/08/MNUKT85I3.DTL.</ref>
It has been estimated that container ships lose over 10,000 containers at sea each year.<ref>Janice Podsada (19 June 2001). "Lost Sea Cargo: Beach Bounty or Junk?". National Geographic News. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/06/0619_seacargo.html. Retrieved 2008-04-08.</ref> Most go overboard on the open sea during storms but there are some examples of whole ships being lost with their cargo.<ref>"Freak waves spotted from space". BBC News. 22 July 2004. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3917539.stm. Retrieved 6 October 2009.</ref> When containers are dropped, they immediately become an environmental threat - termed "marine debris".<ref name="noaa">Sources of Marine Debris NOAA. Retrieved: 25 November 2010.</ref>
Modern loading instruments (like MACS3 with BELCO, SEALASH and DAGO modules) assist to reduce the risks, caused by incorrect stowage of container cargo.
[edit] Specifications
Cargo too large 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 are 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.[citation needed]
[edit] 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 TEU. Such a vessel would displace 137,000 metric tons deadweight (DWT), be 400 meters long, more than 50 meters wide, have a draft of nearly 15 metres, and use more than 85 MW (113,987 hp) to achieve 25.5 knots, specifications met by the Emma Mærsk.<ref name="ctemma">Emma Maersk Container Transportation. Retrieved: 25 November 2010.</ref>[citation needed]
Beyond Suezmax lies the "Malaccamax" (for Straits of Malacca) ship of 18,000 TEU, displacing 300,000 DWT, 470 meters long, 60 meters wide, 16 meters of draft,<ref name="blenMalmax">Blenkey, Nick. Containerships: taking it to the Malaccamax? AllBusiness, 1 July 2006. Accessed: 4 December 2010.</ref> and using more than 100 MW (134,102 hp) for 25.5 knots. This is most likely the limit before a major restructuring of world container trade routes.<ref>Propulsion Trends in Container Vessels, MAN B&W, 19 January 2005 (accessed 16 November 2005) </ref> The biggest constraint of this design, the absence of a capable single engine,[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]
[edit] Largest ships
[edit] Busiest container ports
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[edit] See also
[edit] References
<references />
- The world in a box — from The Economist magazine, 16 March 2006
[edit] External links
| 40x40px | Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Container ships |
- containership-info.com - non-commercial container ship register with quality photos of thousands of vessels
- EURANS description of container ships, including types and the evolution of container ship design (includes photos/diagrams)
- All technical details and service information of more than 4000 containerships
- Photos of container ships by German photographer Marc Steinmetz
- The port of Antwerp in pictures,shipping seen through the eyes of an Antwerp dockworker
- containershipping.nl - Photos of vessels
- Pier2pier.com - non-commercial - All aspects of container transport
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