Re The Maersk Sealand
- 15 April 2009 12:2919526You can see this picture on the anchor page and although its many miles away and the quality is consequently a bit soft, I thought I would put it up anyway. Just look at the enormous load its carrying...how the damm thing floats at all is beyond me, but surely this must be one of the biggest ships afloat. They cannot possibly be anything about bigger than this as how would they even dock, although I expect it comes from Tilbury where I guess they can take enormous stuff.
Its also very topical because it was a ship similar to this that was the subject of the now famed pirate attack where the captain was held hostage...gosh come to think of it..it may well be the very same ship. The loads they carry are worth a vast fortune and very tempting to the humble pirates of Africa. Not that I have any sympathy for them.
Its great to see these wonderful and giant ships going up/down the channel in the spring sunshine.
email: dover7@msn.com - 15 April 2009 12:4319527It looks like the ship could topple over it's so laden down with cargo.Great photo.Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter) - 15 April 2009 17:1519530Hi Paul,
The US ship captured by pirates was the Liberty Sun.
The largest container ship in the world, as far as I know, is the Emma Maersk. She is the largest container ship ever built, the longest currently in service and she has the biggest deisel engine ever manufactured.
She is 397 metres long, 56metres wide and can carry 156,000 tons of freight.There's always a little truth behind every "Just kidding", a little emotion behind every "I don't care" and a little pain behind every "I'm ok". - 15 April 2009 17:5419535Ah thanks guys..wow! what a whopper that one above is. These vessels are huge and no mistake. Well done Jacqui youre a star there with all that info. Youve got a handle on all this nautical stuff along with our 'out there roving on the high seas reporter' Ed Connell.
Its possible to see a whole selection of Maersks moving up the channel on bright visibility days...I wonder if that one mentioned ever comes through here.
They dont half pack them containers on.
Well done again.
email: dover7@msn.com - 21 April 2009 23:5819932Maersk Sealand is actually the name of the company, not the ship. Sea-Land was the American company which started the container revolution half a century ago and were bought out by Maersk a few years back, since when a few of their ships have operated under the Maersk Sealand banner.
The whopper in the photo is heading down channel and will be bound for the Far East. Obviously there is a great imbalance of trade between East and West, with Europe's vast imports from China. A lot of containers have always had to be returned empty although there was a period when we used to send plastics and paper for recycling before the bottom fell out of that with the trade downturn. There are now a lot of boxboats laid up and a surfeit of empty containers around the world. Most of the boxes in the photo are therefore probably empty.
The containers seen on deck in the photo are the tip of the iceberg as the holds below are full of course. In order to maintain stability, they all have to be weighed and stowed accordingly. This is a very complex business as they also have to be in the correct order. The ship will load at a number of ports in Europe and discharge and backload in a number of ports in the Far East. Each container therefore has to be placed in exactly the right slot in whatever port it is loaded in to be accessible at whatever port it is discharged in. The principal UK container port is Felixstowe.
The reason they carry so many above deck is to reduce the size of the ships hull, which results in lower dues when transiting the Suez or Panama canals. A lot are lost overboard every year in heavy weather, Lloyds believes as many as 10,000. As each forty foot container is the thing which is hauled on the back of an articulated lorry, this equals the amount of freight traffic which passed through the Port of Dover on its busiest day ever.
The Emma Maersk quoted above, and her sister ships, are believed to have a capacity of 15,000 teu (twenty foot equivalent units) although Maersk likes to quote somewhat less for commercial reasons. This would equate to 7,500 forty foot containers or a higher number of forty and twenty foot units mixed, as is the norm.
I took some photos of one of this class, the Evelyn Maersk, as she passed ahead of us in the Dover Strait a couple of years ago, see url below. The Second Mate asked me to as his mum's name is Evelyn! He is in the second photo. The penultimate one shows the view from the Bridge, which is like looking down from a light aircraft, as the Emma Maersk departed from Odense fjord after leaving the builders shipyard.
http://shipsintheportofdover.fotopic.net/c1296266_1.html - 22 April 2009 01:1619933The Maersk Alabama, which is the vessel boarded by pirates off East Africa, is a much smaller boxboat than the above. The story is related very well in the link below so I won't bother to repeat it, just to make a couple of points.
The captain wound up in the lifeboat because it was a freefall lifeboat. This is one which is mounted angled down on rails at the stern and is released from inside the boat. Everybody has to strap themselves in and the thing hurtles down into the water in a stomach wrenching plunge. The captain was showing them how to operate it when they decided to take him with them. He then spent several days bobbing around in the Indian Ocean with heavily armed and increasingly desperate pirates. Not nice, and he has deservedly become an All-American hero.
The three remaining teenage pirates were surrounded by a billion dollars of American hardware and the conclusion was fairly inevitable. They were shot simultaneously by US Navy Seals snipers on the stern of the USS Bainbridge when all three were in view at the same time, probably unaware that the Americans had night sights that made them as visible as in broad daylight.
The USS Bainbridge then made her way to Mombasa, detouring to provide assistance to another American cargoship, the Liberty Sun, which was being fired upon by pirates in revenge for the slaughter of their comrades.
Although the temptation is to solve the pirate problem by force, this seldom works out. The French stormed a seized yacht last week but the owner died in the firefight, probably by a French bullet. The Indian navy destroyed a fishing boat being used by pirates as a mother ship some time ago only to find out next day that it was a foreign fishing boat that had been seized and all the innocent crew had perished along with the pirates.
The long term solution is clearly to wipe out the Somali pirates shore bases but the Americans are doubtless reluctant to do this remembering the horrific images of the bodies of dead American soldiers being dragged through the dusty streets of Mogadishu after the Black Hawk Down debacle.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article6115871.ece - 22 April 2009 01:3419934Thanks Ed.Very informative.Marek
I think therefore I am (not a Tory supporter)
