Early on Saturday morning, the largest containership ever to visit North America arrived at the port of Los Angeles, marking the U.S. debut of a new breed of ‘mega ships’ that have until now only been seen in Asia and Europe. The 398-meter, 18,000 TEU capacity MV CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin arrived just after 4 a.m. at APM Terminals’ Pier 400 at the port of Los Angeles after sailing from China according to a gcaptain report.
The ship, owned by France's CMA CGM Group, is one of a new type of Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs) being built at shipyards in Asia by some of the largest carriers to further increase capacity and efficiency on the world’s busiest shipping routes. The vessels are designed to carry more than 18,000, and in some cases even 19,000 twenty-foot equivalent containers, but until now they have been deployed exclusively on Asia to N. Europe trade routes.
The company owner says the ship will be deployed on the Pearl River Express, a regular service connecting some of China’s main ports, including Xiamen, Nansha and Yantian, with Los Angeles and Oakland. The vessel will call at the port of Oakland next on December 31st before heading back across the Pacific to China.
But while one may question the need for such a massive ship at a time when global trade is sliding fast, and when a third of all containers leaving the port of Long Beach are empty, what is certain is that the sheer size of the ship caused quite a stir, if not so much in the shipping world then certain online.
Putting the gargantuan dimensions of the ship in context, the Verge writes that the Benjamin Franklin is longer than the Empire State Building is tall, dwarfs the largest aircraft carrier in the US Navy, and can carry the volume of 235 Olympic swimming pools.
Set against the Port of Los Angeles' huge cranes, a time-lapse video of the vessel arriving for the first time in the US almost makes it look normal in scale, but compared to the largest boats on the sea, the Benjamin Franklin is a monster. Its deck is 1,300 feet from prow to stern — longer than than three football fields — and it can lug 18,000 containers across the world's oceans, requiring an engine that puts out as much thrust as 11 Boeing 747-400 engines.
View a time lapse video of the arrival of the CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin. #BenjaminFranklinVisitsLA #PortofLA pic.twitter.com/IVmHffqsIu
— Port of Los Angeles (@PortofLA) December 28, 2015
And now a little love for city of angels: Eric Garcetti, mayor for Los Angeles, said that the city was chosen by French shipping company CMA CGM for the Benjamin Franklin's first stop to show that the port was "among the world's greatest." Just a year after labor disputes brought seabound trade on the United States' west coast to a standstill, the Port of Los Angeles will hope successfully processing the largest cargo vessel that America has ever seen will prove that the country's Pacific ports are back up and running.
That said, we are far more curious to see what the utilization of this ship will be during the current global downturn and even more curious to see how this goliath of a ship handles in stormy waters.
Until then, enjoy the following drone's-eye view of the ship.