the 17722 TEU vessel CMA CGM Kerguelen ~ on its maiden voyage

SHIP –  her size  is bemusing and on water it is treat to watch. They have been growing bigger and speed ever increasing with modern technology.  Often, you could see photos on web stating one to be the biggest ship ever.  There are various types of vessels – tankers, bulkers, container ships, car carriers and the like and each category could have its biggest.   

In Dec 2008, i had circulated something on ‘MSC Daniela’ being  extraordinary not only in terms of size, but also in its design aspects-  the biggest containership ever classed by Germanischer Lloyd (GL)  at that time.  It was touted to be  with  14000 TEU capacity.  In Nov 2012, CMA CGM Marco Polo had the unofficial title.  It can  hold 16,020 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit containers) superceding the previous largest Emma Mærsk and her seven sisters of the Mærsk E-class. 

CMA CGM, founded and led by Jacques R. Saadé is the world’s third largest and France’s top container shipping company. Its 445 vessels call more than 400 ports in the world, on all 5 continents. In 2014, over 12.2 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) were carried.  Latest of the CMA CGM fleet’s vessels, the CMA CGM KERGUELEN was delivered on March 31st. She is, with her 398 meters length and 17,722 twenty-foot equivalent containers capacity, the Group’s largest vessel. She is the first of a 6 vessels of the same size series that will enter the fleet in 2015 and join the 460 vessels of the Group.

At 17,722 TEUs capacity it certainly is much bigger than all the earlier vessels and it is equipped with state of the art  environmental technologies.  CMA CGM Group, recently announced taking  delivery of CMA CGM KERGUELEN with impressive dimensions.  With a length of 1,305 ft. (398m) and a width of 177 ft. (54m), the CMA CGM KERGUELEN is  gigantic.   Its 17,722 TEU containers aligned would cover the distance between London and Southampton. It is longer than the Empire State Building, wider than an olympic pool, and its thrust is equivalent to the one of 10 A380 Airbus reactors.  The vessel was christened at Haropa, Port of Le Havre. As the largest container port for the external trade of France, HAROPA enjoys recognized expertise by shipping companies and main alliances. The container traffic, rising by 2% in 2014, is in the heart of the strategic project of HAROPA, whose target is to reach 4.8 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent) by 2020.

Delivered in March 2015 by the shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries, the containership will be positioned departing from Le Havre on the FAL1 (French Asia Line), the emblematic service of the company which connects Europe to Asia. This line provides the customers of the group with a weekly connection on fixed day between HAROPA and Central and South China (main exporting zones in the country). The commercial offer of CMA CGM provides connection with 275 ports in the world via HAROPA.

CMA CGM Kerguelen, the largest British registered vessel arrived this week,  in purpose-built 500m deep water berth, SCT 5, at  Southampton as part of its maiden voyage.   Southampton is its first and only UK stop on its maiden voyage.  It has the capacity to transport almost 200,000 tonnes of goods and its engine generates 14 megawatts of power, the equivalent of a city of 16,000 residents or 10 windmills.

The ship is named after the 18th Century French navigator Yves Joseph de Kerguelen de Trémarec. The ship is longer than four football pitches, or five-and-a-half A380 Airbus planes; If all the containers it could carry were placed end to end they would stretch for 67 miles (109km).   Yet, this is not the biggest one as, as of January the largest container ship in the world is ‘MSC Oscar’, which is a few metres shorter than the Kerguelen but can carry 19,224 standard containers.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar

13^th May 2015.

[source : BBC; Daily Mail and www.cma-cgm.com - official facebook page]