On 7 January the world’s largest container ship, CSCL Globe, made her maiden call at the port of Felixstowe, and with her huge capacity of 19,100TEU this was covered extensively in the media. Early on the evening of 8 January, while CSCL Globe was still alongside her berth on Felixstowe’s South terminal and after the world’s media had departed, another large container vessel making her maiden call to the port passed CSCL Globe and, in the early evening light, was turned around by tugs before being backed onto Felixstowe’s Trinity 7 berth.
To the uninformed observer it looked like a typical scene at the busy container port, but in fact the incoming vessel was Morten Maersk (194,849gt), the 13th vessel in the series of 20 Triple E giants that held the title of the world’s largest containership until CSCL Globe entered service. The combined capacity of these two vessels was a staggering 37,370teu.
The arrival at Felixstowe of Morton Maersk was only the second time a Triple E vessel had called at a UK port, although from February they are to be regular visitors. With their capacity of 18,270teu, Maersk Line’s Triple E series have held the title of largest container ship since August 2013.
However, such is the pace of container ship size that CSCL Globe held the title for just 53 days before losing it to an even larger vessel – MSC Oscar – which has a declared capacity of 19,224TEU. CSCL Globe is the first of five ships ordered for service on the Asia-North Europe trade route. AM
