CONTAINER SHIPS - Giants of the Sea - Films

28min30sec or 52min German or English version

Synopsis

Even in 1993 Vulkan manager Josef Klar warned about container ships with more than 6.000 TEU. A TEU is a standard container with a length of 20 feet. Klar claimed that vessels of this size could not be competitive. The largest container vessels built today carry 8,000 TEU, have a length of 335 metres and a width of over 42 metres, corresponding to 3 football fields. These giants are driven by the biggest diesel engines possible nowadays, with nearly 100,000 hp, and are designed for a high speed of 24.5 knots. Compared to medium-sized vessels the use of 8000 TEU container ships reduce the costs of carriage to more than 10%. But the question is still: What does this economization on the one hand and the enlargement of the ships on the other hand mean for the construction of the ports, for the crew and for the logistics? The documentary shows how an 8000 TEU ship leaves the doc in Japan and in Hamburg. Further it out-looks the dimension up to which these developments will lead us when you know that dutch construction engineers have already put up a model of an 18.000 TEU giant.

CONTAINER SHIPS - Giants of the Sea

CONTAINER SHIPS - Giants of the Sea

CONTAINER SHIPS - Giants of the Sea