Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by LaminatorX on Monday October 20 2014, @09:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the not-the-local-bulk-cruisers-mind-you dept.

Alastair Philip Wiper writes that at at 194 feet wide and 1,312 feet long, the Matz Maersk Triple E is the largest ship ever built capable of carrying 18,000 20-foot containers. Its propellers weigh 70 tons apiece and it is too big for the Panama Canal, though it can shimmy through the Suez. A U-shaped hull design allows more room below deck, providing capacity for 18,000 shipping containers arranged in 23 rows – enough space to transport 864 million bananas. The Triple-E is constructed from 425 pre-fabricated segments, making up 21 giant “megablock” cross sections. Most of the 955,250 litres of paint used on each ship is in the form of an anti- corrosive epoxy, pre-applied to each block. Finally, a polyurethane topcoat of the proprietary Maersk brand colour, “Hardtop AS-Blue 504”, is sprayed on.

Twenty Triple-E class container ships have been commissioned by Danish shipping company Maersk Lines for delivery by 2015. The ships are being built at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering factory in the South Korean port of Opko. The shipyard, about an hour from Busan in the south of the country, employs about 46,000 people, and "could reasonably be described as the worlds biggest Legoland," writes Wiper. "Smiling workers cycle around the huge shipyard as massive, abstractly over proportioned chunks of ships are craned around and set into place." The Triple E is just one small part of the output of the shipyard, as around 100 other vessels including oil rigs are in various stages of completion at the any time.” The vessels will serve ports along the northern-Europe-to-Asia route, many of which have had to expand to cope with the ships’ size. “You don’t feel like you’re inside a boat, it’s more like a cathedral,” Wiper says. “Imagine this space being full of consumer goods, and think about how many there are on just one ship. Then think about how many are sailing round the world every day. It’s like trying to think about infinity.”

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Monday October 20 2014, @10:26PM

    by frojack (1554) on Monday October 20 2014, @10:26PM (#108002) Journal

    Bigger ships have been built. The Seawise Giant [wikipedia.org], at 458.46 m (1,504.1 ft) long 564,650 DWT was substantially bigger than the planned 400 meter, 165,000t being built. The net tonnage capacity of the Seawise would hold and entire Tripple E ship with room to spare.

    These triple E can only claim bragging rights because the Seawise was scrapped in 2010. It had previously been sunk by the Iraqi Airforce (while full of Iranian oil). In fact there were 6 or 7 ships [wikipedia.org] built that were bigger than the Triple E's.

    You can get an idea of the size of these things on Google Maps [goo.gl] in satellite view. The tricky bit is finding something in the image to judge by. Zoom around in the image and you will see some white pickup trucks parked between the monsters.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +2  
       Informative=2, Total=2
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   4  
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @02:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 21 2014, @02:13AM (#108052)

    They can only claim bragging rights as the largest container ships. Aside from Knock Nevis/Seawise Giant, all of the ULCC/T1 class supertankers are larger. The triple-E's cargo capacity is only 165k tons, where normal VLCC class supertankers carry 280k tons. And the Prelude FLNG barge [wikipedia.org], at 488 m, is more than 20% longer.

    Also, the first of the triple-E's was delivered almost a year ago.

  • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday October 21 2014, @03:15AM

    by mhajicek (51) on Tuesday October 21 2014, @03:15AM (#108069)

    I could build a ship bigger than that. (in Space Engineers...)

    --
    The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek