What you see below is the work of photographer Alastair Philip Wiper done at Opko – a port located in South Korea – and covers the construction of world’s largest container ship known as Maersk Triple E. Maersk placed an order with Daewoo Shipping worth $3.8 billion back in 2011 for 20 such vessels to be built.
The Triple E class comes with a length of 400 meters and a width of 59 meters. This renders it only 3 meters longer and about 4 meters wider when compared with the predecessor known as E class. However, such a small change when coupled with the U-shaped design of the hull instead of a V-shape transforms into quite a noticeable change when it comes to the shipping capacity of the vessel. It can carry 2500 more TEU containers.
The draft measures 14 meters thus rendering the passing of ship through the Panama Canal impossible, however, it can charter the waters of Suez Canal between Europe and Asia. Maersk already has plans of using this lot of ships for this particular route while predicting an increase in Chinese exports. The company’s biggest market is the Asia-Europe trade and has about 100 ships specifically designated for this route.
Photographer Wiper said, “You don’t feel like you’re inside a boat, it’s more like a cathedral. Imagine this space being full of consumer goods, and think about how many there are on just one ship. Then think about how many are sailing round the world every day. It’s like trying to think about infinity.”
The ship comes with dual 43,000hp (32MW) two-stroke, ultra-long-stroke diesel engines and by making use of ‘slow steaming’ approach the fuel consumption can be reduced by 37% while managing a 50% reduction in the carbon dioxide being emitted by each ship. Slow steaming is the name given to the strategy of having ships travel at slower speed than the top speed. The top speed for this particular ship is 23 knots.
This model has been designed with a propulsion system known as ‘twin-skeg’ – it employs 2 engines and dual propellers. The diameter of propellers is 9.8 meters and they sport 4 blades. They weigh 70 tonnes each and have been created at Mecklenburger Metallguss GmBH in Germany. The name Triple E has been derived from the company’s design principles, “Economy of scale, energy efficient and environmentally improved.”
Captain Lars Peter Jensen of the 9th Triple E class that is to be built has worked with Maersk for 42 years and has also served as the captain of the last four ‘largest ships in the world.’ Watch the video below and tell us what you think!
