
Triple-E Ship Leaves Port With World Record Load - chermanowicz
http://gcaptain.com/watch-triple-e-leaves-port-with-world-record-load/
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mixmax
Seeing the video in the article I was reminded of a corporate video they did a
few years ago. I know the director second-hand, and he was basically given
free reign to go wherever he wanted and spend as much money as he deemed
necessary to make a video that got the size and trust of the brand across.

This is the result:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjD9VvhXJrE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjD9VvhXJrE)

I think he succeeded - it's one of the best brand videos I've ever seen.

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kctess5
That's a really good video! Any idea what the final budget was? Would be
interesting to know how much companies dish out for that sort of thing

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will_hughes
I've heard that for things like this you start at $1m per finished minute, and
then go from there.

This is about 12 minutes long, has a fairly well known British Actor
narrating, a well known film director, involved lots of world travel and
various types of specialist equipment operators, lighting and sound folks.

I wouldn't think you'd get away from this for anything under $20m, and
wouldn't be shocked to hear it was $30m.

~~~
carlisle_
I've worked on feature film (90 or more minutes) productions that with a full
crew cost <$400,000 to create. $20m for an advertisement is a gross
overestimate. I would be shocked if it cost more than $100k to make this
video.

~~~
macmac
Many helicopter/offshore shots in exotic locations in that feature film?

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D_Alex
21 years ago I was in a Korean shipyard where the largest container ships of
the day were being built. Their capacity was 6000 TEUs, one-third of the Mary
Maersk. The captain of one of the ships (a 27 year old (!) German woman) told
me most ports cannot handle the 6000 TEU vessels, so their line will be
building mainly 4500 TEU ships.

One interesting thing is that those older, smaller ships had more powerful
engines than the much larger current vessels! The engine installed on the 6000
TEU vessel was ~90,000 hp, and the ship was designed for sailing at ~25 knots,
the justification being that the value of cargo onboard was so high that the
cost of shipping was dominated by the interest charges!

~~~
callesgg
First a note: The useful engine power of ships is logarithmically proportional
to the size of the vesel. A ship that is twice as big will only require and
engine that is half as big.

A problematic thing is they way ports generally work, you may generally not
book a port for a specific arrival date. You have to rush to get there before
other ships, to sit still outside and wait in line.

Not very good for fuel consumption and the environment.

~~~
bkor
> A problematic thing is they way ports generally work, you may generally not
> book a port for a specific arrival date. You have to rush to get there
> before other ships, to sit still outside and wait in line.

For most ports in North Europe that's not the case (though it used to be). You
generally agree on a standard arrival date (day of week + time + number of
moves), then you should arrive at that time. This differs per region though.
For Africa, it's "different". You have terminals owned by customers, etc. More
often you still have to rush, then wait for ages.

Maybe things are different if you're a small shipping line and the same
terminal also working for a few big ones.

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conorh
Several years ago I traveled from Rio De Janeiro to Capetown on a freighter
(although not nearly as large as this Triple-E ship!) There are some ships
that still offer paid passage and staying on board of one of these enormous
ships, manned by just a small crew, is an amazing experience. I got to visit
all the areas of the ship, could wander about during the day, hung out on the
bridge with the night watch, visited the engine room etc. Being on the bridge
when the building sized ship docks at port is incredible to watch.

~~~
toothbrush
This sounds super cool, how do you arrange something like that?

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jccooper
A variety of websites can do it. See
[http://www.seaplus.com/mainmenu.php](http://www.seaplus.com/mainmenu.php)
and/or search "freighter travel".

It costs more than you might think, partly because meals are included.

~~~
toothbrush
That's a fascinating starting point, thank you!

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alepper
Relatedly, 'The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the
World Economy Bigger' is a great little book. I don't see sense in retreading
existing reviews, but I think it would offer something of interest for many in
this crowd.

~~~
rurounijones
And if you can find it, the BBC TV documentary "The box that changed Britain"
is a good one.

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_delirium
The containers are stacked higher and nearer the edge than I would've expected
for an oceangoing ship. Do ships like this lose containers in rough seas?

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3JPLW
Yes, they do. A few weeks ago this hit hacker news:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8062864](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8062864).
62 containers were lost due to a "once in a 100 year wave." One of which
contained Legos.

I'm not sure what the expected value is for number of TEUs lost per journey.
I'd hope that it's near zero, but I don't know.

Edit: quick google. Estimates range from 1,000 (World Shipping Council)[0] to
10,000 (Singularity Hub)[1] lost per year. Either way, with 120 million
containers shipped per year, it's quite low.

0\. [http://gcaptain.com/how-many-shipping-containers-lost-at-
sea...](http://gcaptain.com/how-many-shipping-containers-lost-at-sea/)

1\. [http://singularityhub.com/2011/04/05/10000-shipping-
containe...](http://singularityhub.com/2011/04/05/10000-shipping-containers-
lost-at-sea-each-year-heres-a-look-at-one-2/)

~~~
wclax04
And as a recreational ocean racing sailer, nothing is more terrifying than
seeing one of these bobbing just below the surface.

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toomuchtodo
This is the primary reason the catamaran I'm building has a titanium
superstructure. I refuse to let an orphaned cargo container floating in the
Pacific be my undoing on a circumnavigation.

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jacquesm
When you strike a container at speed all bets are off, regardless of what
material your boat is made of. You're in a catamaran, at least you have two
hulls rather than just one. And it would appear that the part that is
underwater is the most important bit when it comes to striking containers so
I'm not sure why you think a titanium superstructure will help you if there is
a gaping hole in your hull.

~~~
toomuchtodo
A titanium hull failure is superior to a fiberglass or wood hull failure. Even
if I hit a container at speed, the worst scenario is the structure deforming,
versus fiberglass failure scenarios.

~~~
jacquesm
A titanium hull is, but you mentioned _superstructure_ , which is everything
_above_ the hull.

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macmac
If anyone is interested in container shipping in general and how software is
applied to optimising it specifically I can shamelessly plug Markus Völter's
Omega Tau podcast on these subjects
[http://omegataupodcast.net/2014/04/146-container-
shipping/](http://omegataupodcast.net/2014/04/146-container-shipping/)

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na85
It's currently in the South China Sea

[http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:114.6631/ce...](http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:114.6631/centery:22.32802/zoom:8/mmsi:219018692)

[http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/9619921/ve...](http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/9619921/vessel:MARY_MAERSK)

~~~
solutionyogi
That's a really high quality site for a community effort.

Now, I don't have to wonder about all the ships sailing on the Hudson river.

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tcopeland
When I was in the USCG we would be underway at night off the west coast of the
US. It'd be halfway through a midwatch and a huge blob would appear on the
radar up off our port bow. That blob would go tearing down our port side with
a ridiculous speed - and we weren't contributing much because we were just
lagging along at 6 knots. Just an amazing sight after seeing salmon trollers
on the radar all day long.

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w1ntermute
More on the ship:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maersk_Triple_E_class](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maersk_Triple_E_class)

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zachrose
I thought this was the largest ship in the world. It looks like it will soon
be eclipsed by a floating natural gas platform called Prelude.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_FLNG](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prelude_FLNG)

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apaprocki
This is the path it has taken since it left Spain on 7/21:
[https://imgur.com/2w8vg3R](https://imgur.com/2w8vg3R)

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kitd
Something something Docker containers.

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onion2k
17,603 TEU is the equivalent of 1/2 the Empire State Building in volume.

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brianbreslin
i assume this is a panamax ship? is the suez canal wider than the panama
canal?

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azernik
This ship is larger than Panamax
[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maersk_Triple_E_class](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maersk_Triple_E_class)].

The biggest limitation on Panamax size is whether a ship can fit into the
Canal's locks, but the Suez canal is a sea-level waterway with no locks, so
the limit is a lot higher.

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NickWarner775
revolutionary transportation

