It gets here via BIG SHIPS.
The Maersk Triple-E class ships are the 2nd largest in the world.
—- 60,000 tons ….. enough steel for 185,489 Harley Davidson motorcycles
—- 1,313 feet long (just 7 feet shy of a QUARTER MILE) by 194 feet wide, and 243 feet high.
—- 165,000 metric tons deadweight
It’s capacity is 18,000 20-foot containers …. enough for 182 Million i-Pads.
18,000 containers would require a 69 mile long train … or, if stacked on top of each other, would reach 30 miles high …. or, if stacked in front of Blarney Rock Pub in NYC it would look like this …
The Route to Europe
It has a REALLY BIG engine .. well, two of these below …. each producing 43,000 horsepower, or 32 megawatts
And two 32 foot diameter propellers each weighing 70 tons
An anchor bigger than Michelle’s ass ….
…. and each link on the chain weighs 500 pounds
It is THE most EFFICIENT mode of transportation. It burns about 3,500 gallons of fuel per hour (about 11 tons). However … this article claims that due to the low grade fuel used, that ONE container ship is equal in pollution to 50 million cars! ( http://www.gizmag.com/shipping-pollution/11526/ )
It is a “cradle-to-grave” design. Meaning, when the ship is decommissioned, almost 100% of it will be recycled for other uses.
The Design Specification for the ship was over 500 pages in length. It is truly an engineering marvel. For example, over 500 hull designs were considered. Here’s a nice 10 minute overview. (Youtube has a full hour documentary).
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China Shipping Container Lines (CSCL) is even bigger. It is identical in length and width, but has greater gross tonnage (186,000) and its configuration allows for 19,000 20-foot containers.
The LARGEST ship ever built was an oil tanker, the Seawise Giant.
— 1,504 feet long by 226 feet wide
— and a jaw dropping 564,763 dead weight tonnage
You need to see a scale to appreciate its size. (Noah’s Ark would come in at just 135 meters, which apparently was large enough to hold a pair of all the animals in the world, including dinosaurs according to some, and their food.)
Built in 1979, she was damaged in the Iran-Iraq war in 1988 and then sunk. Unbelievably, she was salvaged and rebuilt before being sold for scrap to India in 2004.
one more time, otherwise fuckit
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Container Freight Rates From Asia To Europe Crash 23% In One Week
(COPENHAGEN) Shipping freight rates for transporting containers from ports in Asia to Northern Europe dropped 22.8 per cent to $400 per 20-foot container (TEU) in the week ended last Friday, data from the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index showed.
Freight rates on the world’s busiest shipping route have tanked this year due to overcapacity in available vessels and sluggish demand for transported goods. Rates generally deemed profitable for shipping companies on the route are at about US$800-US$1,000 per TEU.
It was the third consecutive week of falling freight rates on the world’s busiest route. Container freight rates have so far increased in 5 weeks this year but fallen in 23 weeks.
In the week to Friday, container freight rates fell 24 percent from Asia to ports in the Mediterranean, fell 4.4 per cent to ports on the US West Coast and were down 3.7 per cent to ports on the US East Coast.
Maersk Line, the global market leader with more than 600 vessels and part of Danish oil and shipping group AP Moller-Maersk, was one of the few container shipping companies to make a profit last year. The company controls around one fifth of all transported containers from Asia to Europe.
http://govtslaves.info/container-freight-rates-from-asia-to-europe-crash-23-in-one-week/
llpoh says: “Ummm, I beg to differ. I believe the most efficient mode of transportation is the bicycle, particularly the velomobile. I stand to be corrected.”
Looks like we have a volunteer to be the first one to pedal a bicycle across the Pacific Ocean. It may be more efficient for a couple minutes, but then you’ll run out of air and drown.
My boat is 21 feet long, weights 2750 lbs empty and has a 30 horsepower diesel engine. However it costs much more per lbs than these leviathans. A little over $20/pound new. At that rate the Maersk vessel would run about $7.5 billion which is about 10 times what the Queen Mary 2 cost and it was expensive for a cruise ship as it was built as a true Ocean Liner to travel the North Atlantic. So it pays to go big… if you can afford it.
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Thanks for the kind words, El Stucko but I know most of the folks here are really smart individuals and that is the main reason I stay here. I would be in awe of the big dogs and that would be the end of my conversation. Look around at any 5’4″ beaner in dad jeans and a gray t-shirt, that’s El Coyote. You guys have fun, I’ll be happy to read about your wild time in the city.
Thank you Stucky for your pictorial essays; the storm images in particular are enlightening, surely, for those who have not imagined or seen a big ship at sea in a storm. These leviathans are testimony to the greatest empire in our history: all the world brings their riches to we “exceptional” Americans. I continue to wonder at those who pose the question “how could the Chinese possible land millions of their soldiers on our shore?”.