The Emma Maersk, owned by the Danish Maersk Line, is the world's largest container vessel ever built.
This monster transports goods across the Pacific in just 5 days!! This is one of three ships presently in service, with another two ships commissioned to be completed in 2012.
These ships were commissioned by Wal-Mart to get all their goods and stuff from China . They hold an incredible 15,000 containers and have a 207 foot deck beam!! The full crew is just 13 people on a ship longer than a US Aircraft Carrier (which has a crew of 5,000).
With its 207' beam it is too big to fit through the Panama or Suez Canals. It is strictly transpacific. Cruise speed: 31 knots. The goods arrive 4 days before the typical container ship (18-20 knots) on a China-to-California run. 91% of Walmart products are made in China. So this behemoth is hugely competitive even when carrying perishable goods.
The ship was built in five sections. The sections were floated together and then welded. The command bridge is higher than a 10-storey building and the ship has 11 cargo crane rigs that can operate simultaneously, unloading the entire ship in less than two hours.
Additional info:
Country of origin - Denmark
Length - 1,302 ft
Width - 207 ft
Net cargo - 123,200 tons
Engine - 14 cylinders in-line diesel engine (110,000 BHP)
Cruise Speed - 31 knots
Cargo capacity - 15,000 TEU (1 TEU = 20 cubic feet)
Crew - 13 people !
First Trip - Sept. 08, 2006
Construction cost - US$145,000,000
A documentary on the History Channel noted that all of those containers are shipped back to China EMPTY! Yep, that's right - EMPTY!
We send nothing back on these ships. What does that tell you about the current financial state of the Western world? Just keep buying those imported goods (mostly gadgets) until you run out of money. Then you may start to wonder what the cause of all the unemployment might be!
