Hi Mike, the MOL project is ongoing at Samsung in South Korea, but I've seen Samsung container ships blocks barged in from somewhere else before. Now, while it's a fact that the Triple E blocks (for ships under construction at Daewoo shipyard) are manufacture in China, I'll ask around about this one.

Cheers

Vlad

Lappino - do you know where this item was fabricated?
Given the poor relations between Japan/China I doubt whether it was barged in from China where state subsidised steel under cuts everybody else ...but you never know!!.

Thanks for your comments.

Maybe it's worth mentioning that about 10 years ago, when STX came up with a design for 22,000 TEU vessel, it was supposed to be 460 meters long! Little did they know, today it's possible to get very close to that number within the 400x59 m envelope, just by putting the numbers on paper! :)
Ah, those times when double digit economic growth across the globe was taken for granted...

Cheers

Vlad

Hi Vlad,

What I notice in your picture is the amount of space from the cellguides to the bulkhead. I noticed it because of the type of "old-man stairs" instead of vertical ladders just welded against the bulkhead.

Regarding the size, everything is blown up these days.
Don't start overestimating the size of the new Maersk EEE's as well. They will not be any bigger then these ones with also a maximum of 12 high stacking in the holds (the rest is all displacing air on deck).

Frank; they will definitely not become any bigger anytime soon. Actually nobody needs them at the moment in these dire-times. They were all ordered in some sort of rat-race to get the best economics of scale. It didn't turn out very well, and now everyone is consolidating to keep their head above the water, so to speak.

Cheers,
Roy

Nice section view of the laatest and largest container vessel at his moment. Do you think that with a 21,100teu intake number, has the pinnacle of ultra large container ships been reached or as soon as this series from MOL hits the water shall a ship with an even larger container capacity be ordered by one of the other Lines?.

Best Regards

Frank

Michal, you are correct that there are no mid stack stoppers. This used to be the case with older smaller ships but nowadays there is nothing to stop the loading of boxes underdeck. Stack weights are indeed a problem but to resolve it more empties units can be loaded underdeck to reduce stack weights.

And let's not forget maximum permissible weight for container structure. with 12 tiers under deck there will be serious limitations in stackweights to avoid excessive racking forces and "ovalisation" of boxes in lower tiers. i cannot see if there are any mid-stack stoppers to (partly) deal with the problem. anyway, full automatisation and productiveness of modern container terminals make this idea obsolete-nobody would be running up-and-down ladders to play with movable stoppers during cargo operations.
n.b. please notice new enhanced design of coaming shelf, in the photo, it is necessary to deal with longitudal strength of those new mega-ships.

Jan, Vlad,

i think you could both be correct....
Looking at her design she doesn't seem that different from the the CMA CGM Kerguelen class i.e same bay layout looks like (8-11-5 fwd-aft) Main difference is lashing bridges on MOL's are higher and more tiers under deck, increased "creative TEU declaration" will be down to extra tiers of empties on deck and RSCS stowage as Vlad says. So the declared cap of 20,150teu could be correct.But this leaves the question on the EEE2 vessel's perhaps they have a higher intake than declared esp due to the design enhancements.

Indeed. However, i am convinced that - all things being equal - the EEE2 vessels will have a notably higher intake than the MOL ships. Apart from the extra hull depth, the MOL ships are pretty average in terms of design, whereas the EEE2 types have been modified quite a lot versus older deisgns of similar size. So i am dubious of the declared 21K teu.

Jan, this is called "creative TEU number declaration", and is considered normal nowadays. :)

But, seriously, I expect these vessels to have RSCS (route specific container stowage) notation, meaning that they will stack a lot on their decks.

Cheers

Vlad

Thanks for your comment, Andrew. I remember that not so long ago the maximum stacking height was said to be 8 containers... But, not so long ago ships of 20k+ TEU capacity were in the realm of sci-fi, too. :)

Cheers

Vlad

^^ Hi Vlad and Andy. Actually, the 21,000+ teu sound rather optimistic to me. Compared to the MADRID MAERSK and sisters, these vessels will be far more conventional. Unless I am mistaken, MOL and Samsung have artificially inflated the teu count. (?)

Nice shot Vlad, 12 deep underdeck seems the way forward!