emma maersk

Emma Maersk
By Wally Nichols
(203) 858 3634
Accidentally leave the words “Emma Maersk” in your brower’s search engine these days and suffer the distinct possibility that your beloved spouse drifts towards thoughts of infidelity or erstwhile high school flames or maybe even possibly a high stakes gubernatorial prostitute.
Emma is, as it turns out, too much for any one man. In fact, 13 at minimum, are necessary. She’s taller than most. She travels regularly to Oakland, California bringing with her gifts from the Orient both exotic and banal. By all accounts she’s breathtaking and every woman alive has to at least check jealousy momentarily and gasp as she passes.
She and her bow wave, that is.
She’s the largest shipping vessel in the world and one whose very existence threatens to drop a shoulder into the delicate balance of trade. Here’s how: At 1,302 feet long (a quarter mile) she had to be made in three separate parts that were floated together and then welded at sea. She can carry 15,000 TEU (20 yard containers). (Her spec sheet claims fewer but shipping companies frequently underclaim their capacity. Images of her loaded tell a different story). 15,000 containers is triple the amount a ‘regular’ monster container ship can carry. She has 11 deck cranes for super speedy loading. Her minimum crew of 13 pales compared to an aircraft carrier which, smaller, needs a crew complement of 5,000. She has the world’s largest diesel engine which generates 110,000HP. Each of its 14 cylinders is 36 inches in diameter (a typical car’s cylinder is maybe 3 inches diameter). This energy powerhouse pushes her, fully loaded, at 31 knots. One (or one’s entire home continent) could easily water ski behind that. This stat too trumps because at almost 50% faster than the typical 20 knot speed of other ships, she can traverse the pacific in 4 fewer days.
Which means produce (in addition to just more enormous quantities of non perishable consumer goods) becomes viable cargo. In both directions.
AP Moller- Maersk Group, the shipping behemoth that owns her, has been considered by some to be the Microsoft of the shipping industry. It owns over 40 shipping container ports around the globe and dwarfs its nearest competitor. In designing the Emma Maersk, they didn’t bother making her narrow enough to fit through either the Suez or the Panama canals. At 207 feet wide, she’s strictly designed for the trans pacific milk run. Her hull is painted with silicone which reduces water resistance and saves the company an estimated 317,000 gallons of diesel a year. The latest in technology ensure optimized engine performance and operational safety. Her speed and hauling capacity already make it cheaper to send containers across the entire ocean than to send them 100 miles inland on a truck.
AP Moller- Maersk Group well understands the fundamentals of economies of scale and the potential bonanza transporting perishables brings--10 more sister ships are currently being designed and built each at an estimated cost of $150 million (US) at the Odense Steel Shipyards.
Don't worry about leaving Emma Maersk (or any of her sturdy sisters) in your search engine. She is too big to fit.