Live data from Hacker News

Triple-E Ship Leaves Port With World Record Load

gcaptain.com

31–40 of 65 posts

Re: Triple-E Ship Leaves Port With World Record Load

#31
post #24

21 years ago I was in a Korean shipyard where the largest container ships of the day were being built. Their capacity was 6000 TEUs, one-third of the Mary Maersk. The captain of one of the ships (a 27 year old (!) German woman) told me most ports cannot handle the 6000 TEU vessels, so their line will be building mainly 4500 TEU ships. One interesting thing is that those older, smaller ships had more powerful engines…

First a note: The useful engine power of ships is logarithmically proportional to the size of the vesel. A ship that is twice as big will only require and engine that is half as big.

A problematic thing is they way ports generally work, you may generally not book a port for a specific arrival date. You have to rush to get there before other ships, to sit still outside and wait in line.

Not very good for fuel consumption and the environment.

Re: Triple-E Ship Leaves Port With World Record Load

#32
post #6

Relatedly, 'The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger' is a great little book. I don't see sense in retreading existing reviews, but I think it would offer something of interest for many in this crowd.

And if you can find it, the BBC TV documentary "The box that changed Britain" is a good one.

Re: Triple-E Ship Leaves Port With World Record Load

#34
post #24

21 years ago I was in a Korean shipyard where the largest container ships of the day were being built. Their capacity was 6000 TEUs, one-third of the Mary Maersk. The captain of one of the ships (a 27 year old (!) German woman) told me most ports cannot handle the 6000 TEU vessels, so their line will be building mainly 4500 TEU ships. One interesting thing is that those older, smaller ships had more powerful engines…

First a note: The useful engine power of ships is logarithmically proportional to the size of the vesel. A ship that is twice as big will only require and engine that is half as big. A problematic thing is they way ports generally work, you may generally not book a port for a specific arrival date. You have to rush to get there before other ships, to sit still outside and wait in line. Not very good for fuel consumpt…

> ... logarithmically proportional to the size of the vesel. A ship that is twice as big will only require and engine that is half as big.

Surely not "half as big". ITYM the engine size for a 2x vessel size increase is 1.5x. Maybe "half again as big" would convey it.

Re: Triple-E Ship Leaves Port With World Record Load

#35
post #23
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they do. A few weeks ago this hit hacker news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8062864 . 62 containers were lost due to a "once in a 100 year wave." One of which contained Legos. I'm not sure what the expected value is for number of TEUs lost per journey. I'd hope that it's near zero, but I don't know. Edit: quick google. Estimates range from 1,000 (World Shipping Council)[0] to 10,000 (Singularity Hub)[1]…

And as a recreational ocean racing sailer, nothing is more terrifying than seeing one of these bobbing just below the surface.

This is the primary reason the catamaran I'm building has a titanium superstructure. I refuse to let an orphaned cargo container floating in the Pacific be my undoing on a circumnavigation.

Re: Triple-E Ship Leaves Port With World Record Load

#36
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They lock containers together with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twistlock (and probably with other mechanisms) though of course if the ship tilts enough there can still be problems.

Lashing bars are the other mechanism. Big turnbuckles that hold down the first few levels.

Obligatory terminology helper link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnbuckle.

Re: Triple-E Ship Leaves Port With World Record Load

#37

i assume this is a panamax ship? is the suez canal wider than the panama canal?

Loads and loads of vessels are too big for current Panamax locks/canal (max size around 5.100 TEU). One of the vessel classes is post-panamax and there are various classes above that :-P. Panamax canal is now being expanded, but it'll only fit about 14.500 TEU vessels. The previous largest vessels Maersk has (E-class instead of triple-E class) also don't fit to the _new_ Panamax. That new Panamax is still underway.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container_ships#Size_categories

Re: Triple-E Ship Leaves Port With World Record Load

#38
post #24

21 years ago I was in a Korean shipyard where the largest container ships of the day were being built. Their capacity was 6000 TEUs, one-third of the Mary Maersk. The captain of one of the ships (a 27 year old (!) German woman) told me most ports cannot handle the 6000 TEU vessels, so their line will be building mainly 4500 TEU ships. One interesting thing is that those older, smaller ships had more powerful engines…

First a note: The useful engine power of ships is logarithmically proportional to the size of the vesel. A ship that is twice as big will only require and engine that is half as big. A problematic thing is they way ports generally work, you may generally not book a port for a specific arrival date. You have to rush to get there before other ships, to sit still outside and wait in line. Not very good for fuel consumpt…

> A problematic thing is they way ports generally work, you may generally not book a port for a specific arrival date. You have to rush to get there before other ships, to sit still outside and wait in line.

For most ports in North Europe that's not the case (though it used to be). You generally agree on a standard arrival date (day of week + time + number of moves), then you should arrive at that time. This differs per region though. For Africa, it's "different". You have terminals owned by customers, etc. More often you still have to rush, then wait for ages.

Maybe things are different if you're a small shipping line and the same terminal also working for a few big ones.

Re: Triple-E Ship Leaves Port With World Record Load

#40
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really good video! Any idea what the final budget was? Would be interesting to know how much companies dish out for that sort of thing

I've heard that for things like this you start at $1m per finished minute, and then go from there. This is about 12 minutes long, has a fairly well known British Actor narrating, a well known film director, involved lots of world travel and various types of specialist equipment operators, lighting and sound folks. I wouldn't think you'd get away from this for anything under $20m, and wouldn't be shocked to hear it wa…

I've worked on feature film (90 or more minutes) productions that with a full crew cost <$400,000 to create. $20m for an advertisement is a gross overestimate. I would be shocked if it cost more than $100k to make this video.
Post reply on HN