one of the biggest !

Container Ship - Emma Maersk

Emma Mærsk is a container ship owned by the A. P. Moller-Maersk Group. When she was launched, Emma Mærsk was the largest container ship ever built, and as of 2008 the longest ship in use. Officially, Emma Mærsk is able to carry around 11,000twenty-foot equivalent units(TEU) according to the Maersk company's method of calculating capacity, which is about 1,400 more containers than any other ship is capable of carrying.

General Characteristics

Tonnage:	170,974 GT (55,396 NT)
Length:	397 metres (1,300ft)
Beam:	56 metres (180ft)
Draft:	15.5 metres (51ft)
Capacity:	156,907 DWT, 11,000TEU

By normal calculations, Emma Mærsk's cargo capacity is significantly greater than the listed capacity — between 13,500twenty-foot equivalent units(TEU) and 15,200TEU. The difference between the official and estimated numbers is because Maersk calculates the capacity of a container ship by weight (in this case, 14 tons/container) that can be carried on a vessel. For the Emma Mærsk, this is 11,000 containers. Other companies calculate the capacity of a container ship according to the maximum number of containers that can be put on the ship, independent of the weight of the containers. This number is always greater than the number calculated by the Maersk method.

The ship was built at the Odense Steel Shipyard in Denmark. In June 2006, during construction, welding work caused a fire within her superstructure. It spread rapidly through the accommodation section and bridge.

Emma Mærsk was named in a ceremony on August 12, 2006. The ship is named after Emma Mærsk, Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller's late wife. The ship set sail on her maiden voyage on 8 September 2006 at 02:00 hours from Aarhus, calling at Gothenburg, Bremerhaven, Rotterdam, Algeciras, the Suez Canal, and arrived in Singapore on 1 October 2006 at 20:05 hours.

Emma Mærsk departed Singapore the next day, headed for Yantian in Shenzhen. She sailed on to Kobe, Nagoya, arrived at Yokohama on 10 October 2006, and returned via Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Tanjung Pelepas, the Suez Canal, Felixstowe, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Gothenburg and finally to Aarhus, with arrival at that port 11 November 2006 at 16:00 hours.

She appeared in headlines prior to Christmas 2006, when she was dubbed SS Santa because she was bound for the United Kingdom from China loaded with Christmas goods. The return journey after Christmas 2006 saw her return to southern China, loaded with UK waste destined for recycling in China.

Her appearance in the news prompted China's State Environmental Protection Administration to promise to "closely watch the progress of investigation into the dumping of garbage in south China by Britain". It added that no official approval had been given to any company in the area to import waste.

Emma Maersk's regular round trip involves Ningbo, Xiamen, Hong Kong (westbound), Yantian (westbound), Tanjung Pelepas (westbound), Algeciras (westbound), Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Algeciras (eastbound), Tanjung Pelepas (eastbound), Yantian (eastbound), Hong Kong (eastbound) and Ningbo.