Gigantic 19,100-TEU containership CSCL GLOBE in Hamburg on maiden voyage

With the CSCL GLOBE, from 13-15 January the Port of Hamburg will for the first time be handling a 19,100-TEU vessel. She is currently the world’s largest containership operating in a liner service
and is deployed in the Europe-East Asia trade. This year China will again be further expanding its position as Hamburg’s leading trading partner for container traffic. On the basis of the first evaluation of 2014 throughput figures for container traffic with China, Port of Hamburg Marketing assumes that the three-million-TEU mark will be reached. As the new Giant of the Seas, when fully loaded the CSCL GLOBE has dimensions of around 400 metres length, 59 metres wide and a draft of 16 metres.

 A slot capacity of 19,100 TEU makes this newbuild for China Shipping Container Lines one of the world’s largest containerships. The Hyundai Heavy Industries shipyard in South Korea will be delivering her four sisterships in the course of this year. This enormous containership will be discharging and loading around 11,000 TEU during her first call at Eurogate Container Terminal Hamburg.

“During the next few years we are reckoning with ongoing growth on the East Asia-Europe trade route and want to further expand our market share on this rotation. The Port of Hamburg plays a crucial part in this as a cargo source and transhipment hub – currently we are in Hamburg every week with seven services,” said Niels Harnack, Managing Director of China Shipping Agency (Germany) GmbH, as the CSCL GLOBE made her maiden call at Eurogate Container Terminal Hamburg. He also emphasized, however, that the dredging and widening of the navigation channel on the Lower and Outer Elbe is urgently required so that the transport chains can be run even more efficiently.

 “Since the draft restrictions make it impossible for our newbuilds to sail on the Elbe fully laden, we have to leave part of the cargo in Rotterdam,” explained Harnack. One extra metre of draft on the Elbe would enable mega-containerships such as the CSCL GLOBE to transport more than 1,000 TEU more. The AEX 1 liner service on which the CSCL GLOBE is deployed, serves the following ports: Tianjin, Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, Nansha, Yantian, Singapore, Port Kelang, Felixstowe, Rotterdam, Hamburg and Zeebrugge.