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Drone Footage Of The Largest Ship To Ever Dock In The US
Early on Saturday morning, the largest containership ever to visit North America arrived at the port of Los Angeles, marking the U.S. debut of a new breed of ‘mega ships’ that have until now only been seen in Asia and Europe. The 398-meter, 18,000 TEU capacity MV CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin arrived just after 4 a.m. at APM Terminals’ Pier 400 at the port of Los Angeles after sailing from China according to a gcaptain report.
The ship, owned by France's CMA CGM Group, is one of a new type of Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs) being built at shipyards in Asia by some of the largest carriers to further increase capacity and efficiency on the world’s busiest shipping routes. The vessels are designed to carry more than 18,000, and in some cases even 19,000 twenty-foot equivalent containers, but until now they have been deployed exclusively on Asia to N. Europe trade routes.
The company owner says the ship will be deployed on the Pearl River Express, a regular service connecting some of China’s main ports, including Xiamen, Nansha and Yantian, with Los Angeles and Oakland. The vessel will call at the port of Oakland next on December 31st before heading back across the Pacific to China.
But while one may question the need for such a massive ship at a time when global trade is sliding fast, and when a third of all containers leaving the port of Long Beach are empty, what is certain is that the sheer size of the ship caused quite a stir, if not so much in the shipping world then certain online.
Putting the gargantuan dimensions of the ship in context, the Verge writes that the Benjamin Franklin is longer than the Empire State Building is tall, dwarfs the largest aircraft carrier in the US Navy, and can carry the volume of 235 Olympic swimming pools.
Set against the Port of Los Angeles' huge cranes, a time-lapse video of the vessel arriving for the first time in the US almost makes it look normal in scale, but compared to the largest boats on the sea, the Benjamin Franklin is a monster. Its deck is 1,300 feet from prow to stern — longer than than three football fields — and it can lug 18,000 containers across the world's oceans, requiring an engine that puts out as much thrust as 11 Boeing 747-400 engines.
View a time lapse video of the arrival of the CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin. #BenjaminFranklinVisitsLA #PortofLA pic.twitter.com/IVmHffqsIu
— Port of Los Angeles (@PortofLA) December 28, 2015
And now a little love for city of angels: Eric Garcetti, mayor for Los Angeles, said that the city was chosen by French shipping company CMA CGM for the Benjamin Franklin's first stop to show that the port was "among the world's greatest." Just a year after labor disputes brought seabound trade on the United States' west coast to a standstill, the Port of Los Angeles will hope successfully processing the largest cargo vessel that America has ever seen will prove that the country's Pacific ports are back up and running.
That said, we are far more curious to see what the utilization of this ship will be during the current global downturn and even more curious to see how this goliath of a ship handles in stormy waters.
Until then, enjoy the following drone's-eye view of the ship.
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Did somebody just say “We need a BIGGER boat”? ;-)
Looney
It would take an armada of about 60 of these ships to carry the US debt printed in $100 bills ... printed in $1 bills, sea levels would definitely rise.
http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/us_debt/us_debt.html
Yeah, but what if it was filled with oh, I don't know.... Chinese-made plastic crap? How much sea level rise would that get us?
... and that's why I'm convinced that Paul Krugman is a sociopath ... how else do you reconcile the argument to print moar but consume less ?
He's a tribe member, if it benefits the tribe, it's good for humanity. Humanity only being the tribe in their mind.
Sometimes it's the disagreements between tribesmen that benefits humanity ... like the two tribesmen squabbling over a penny and inadvertently inventing copper wire.
like the two tribesmen fighting over a penny and inadvertently inventing copper wire* (which they immediately put to use to create nukes and thereby introduce the Sampson Option to the world)
Baltic Dry Index at all-time lows
So yeah...that's it...build moar-bigger-er-er container ships that nobody needs.
I think you're missing the point. Large single cargo ships like this work great if you are trying to transport luxury items all at once. They are not very cost offective for lower turn over budget and surplus goods that have low mark ups. The ships are too expensive and slow to make any real money on that sort of scale. Low mark up stuff needs greater volume than these high dollar, high maintenance ships can provide.
These ships aren't for the public. They are so the elites can transport goods made by essentially slave labor while the rest of us support them in their luxury.
peak oil, peak debt, peak junk
That ship brought in -18,000 American jobs, 942 illegal aliens, 70,000 TVs to destroy American minds, and 3000 tons of toxic chemicals. Nice.
Is that Drone registered?
peak bullshit, a mountain unscalable
Peak Peaks
are you making this stuff up or do you believe in it? cargo is nowadays either "bulk" or in containers
if by "luxury" you mean nearly everything that is not bulk, i.e. TVs, radios, kitchens, cutlery, motorbikes, and practically everything up to rubber ducks for the kiddie's bath (there was a funny accident with rubberducks, once - they aren't the best thing to have in ship's screws)... then ok
meanwhile, the ship does not make money based on the value of the cargo. fees are fixed, one container shipped costs the same regardless from the content
true luxury items and gold travel in aircraft containers. this includes luxury foodstuff, from lobsters to champagne to caviar to wild catched fish
I'm just surprised that Eugene (THE PLAGUE) Belford hasn't put the 'Da Vinci Virus' on that thing yet. Either that or Crash Override & Zero Cool came to the rescue again.
"Wild catched fish?"
It's "Wild caught fish", Shakespeare.
hey, cut the guy a break, he's a european, and a socialist, he doesn't know any better.
They will make nice housing for the slaves, when the transport of cheap, or expensive shit is no longer necessary.
The average commercial ships are cheaper, on-time, on-budget, and more available than the average 5-star cluster fuck, taxpayer funded, boondoggle that nything in the Navy's fleet.
http://thorconpower.com/docs/two_ships.pdf
Keep calm and be scared.
That's an eye opener of a document!
Typical .gov waste!
When you use someone else credit card to purchase something for yourself who cares what the cost is.
"Baltic Dry Index at all-time lows"
I don't think that the BDI reflects this type of ship. These are not "bulk carriers" as tracked by the BDI - but, they are a good proxy for world economic activity as well, just on the finished product side.
Lloyd's of London loves this! Can you imagine the price to insure the cargo (not even counting the vessel itself)? Damn.
Yet when I called them and told them I wanted to ship my pants, some Chinese guy told me he could crean them for free dorra.
Those containers hold pollution-free goods. Meanwhile, in China, there is toxic pollution everywhere as a byproduct of manufacturing these goods for export. The Chinese government ignores the hidden costs of environmental degradation from factories that dump waste byproducts of manufacturing in the soil, the air and the water. These poisons are responsible for the high rates of cancer in industrial areas of China. So China's victory in its trade wars with other countries like the United States is not total, not when its people in industrial wastelands are dying from bad air, contaminated water and poisoned food.
Maybe true, but once they invade and take control of the Western USSA, they can simply move a billion people here and start over
Yes, but their billionaire oligarchs don't care about their people, any more than the our narcissistic (DC) billionaires care about us.
More unaffordable imports destroying the Western World from the main slave economy to make a few characters even more money than they can ever spend.The disaster comes right from the corrupt top.The time for change is now,today.
Just think of all the "lost" jobs loaded on this monster. And why aren't Americans "getting ahead"? I am sure Congress will have the answer.
I live in Maryland. Earlier in the the year, I needed a part rechromed. No big deal. Googled it, and started making calls. There are NO chrome plating outfits remaining in the state. One company, who anodizes, told me they all shut down or relocated out of state because of Maryland's environmental regulations.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. So, great! We are clean. I'm all for a clean environment. But everyone in the state can't work for NSA or the government. Between the FSA and government, that probably compromises 70% of the state. The other 30% are having a rough go of it.
Baltimore used to have some awesome industry. Beth Steel, shipyards, car and truck manufacturing, chemicals, and 10's of thousands of blue collar jobs to support all of that industry.
Gone. Fucking GONE! Replaced by behemoth Military contractors, NSA and government of every stripe. Baltimore city has half the population it did when I was a kid, growing up there. I guarantee the government in the city has at least TWICE as many " employees" as did 40 years ago. For half the population. And, other than the gentrified Harbor areas, is a mismanaged fucking shithole war zone. With no jobs. At least, not for our average black brothers and sisters. You can only pack so many in government, school teachers, police and firefighters.
Time was, a black man could work at the shipyard, Beth steel, GM assembly plant or dozens of other manufacturing jobs. It's all gone.
These kids are not going to end up at Hopkins or Morgan Stanley.
They need a fucking job. But, the government addicts these poor bastards on .gov cheese, and lets the country be invaded by low skilled workers that take the jobs available.
I wouldn't do t either, if you can collect more gov cheese than a modest salary.
What a fucked up situation.
why not produce environmental-friendly goods and services, brand them, and charge a premium?
"why not produce environmental-friendly goods and services, brand them, and charge a premium?"
Like Skittles? As long as you can contain the unicorn flatulence you can sell your carbon credits to some company that has been capped and traded!
i speak not of unreal things like cap and trade.
Had to upvote you, NoPension. I lived in Laurel, about 20 miles south of Charm City in the late 90s, and while it was fun around the harbor, most of the city was a shithole then and I'm assuming it's probably worse now.
Also, I'm originally from Rochester, NY, where Kodak was the big employer. Used to employ over 60,000 and anybody could get a job there, plus, the company spawned countless tool and die shops. Now, Kodak employs less than 10,000 and the tool and die shops are also all gone, in addition to all that skilled labor.
And, ta-da! Rochester is the 3rd poorest city in the country, has the highest paid teachers and graduate 45% of our high school students. We're exceptional. Exceptionally shitty.
As a friend of mine wrote in my HS yearbook, "we had a great time. Please change."
When they went direct to plate for printing presses & bypassed film kodak was dead 10 years ago. There went my high paying job too.
yep, the globalists politicians sell out and destroy American industry and jobs for some money and some temporary power. They are Idiocracy on steroids in reality
Last year I was visiting Amish country, and we stopped in Bethlehem, PA. The rusting remains of what was once the largest steel mill in the world sits as a sad reminder of what America has become.
http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/04/05/...
It's easy to have clean air when you have no industry. We can all support our families by selling Unicorn turds on Ebay. No need for any of that dirty manufacturing stuff.
FIFY. If Pro is the opposite of con, then the opposite of progress is....
It's OK. American's didn't want those jobs anyhow. Besides, .gov tells me our unemployment rate is lower than ever.
These babies are great jobs programs for the rest of the world. Just think of all the people with jobs overseas building these ships.
Think of all the people in Bangledesh and other places dismantling all the "old" ships no longer needed b/c they were replaced by these new mega-ships.
It's a great jobs program creating world-wide prosperity.
What could possibly be better.
You just need to take the big-picture view of these ships.
/sarc
yeah, all that rising into the middle class in those foreign country sweatshops at 10 cents an hour and can't buy a single they make. So wise of our peerless leaders ...
Can we say "sitting duck"? I wonder why the French named it Benj. Franklin?
I wonder why the French named it Benj. Franklin?
Franklin was US Ambassador to France (1776-1785) and was actually well known and liked by the French people.
When the ship retires...it can be a floating refugee village....
Juba: "I didn't know men could build such things." -Gladiator
That boat screams cuts in global shipping jobs... and penis complex.
this containership shows just how fucking retarded the middle class is in this country. if this isn't the 800 pound gorilla you need to switch from voting democrat to trump, i don't know what is. this is the biggest STFU to ever come out of asia to our middle class. going back to NAFTA, now TPP, and whatever else hillary will sell-out our middle class to whoever will "donate" to her clinton slush-fund. trump is the ONLY GUY talking about how we have gotten KILLED because of "trade deals" with mexico, china, and japan. instead, the "middle class" would rather focus on getting a few extra bucks to flip burgers so they can buy an extra iphone to snap pictures to post on instagram/facebook/twitter of themselves drinking expensive champangne they charged on new years eve. really need 1 guy with the balls to shred these trade deals, stabilize our currency, and hold others to account who are willing to incinerate their own currency and counterfeit their way to "prosperity". im now of the belief that the only 2 guys worthy of my vote are trump or cruz. any of the other bozos on that stage are nothing more than hillary with a filled-out portion of the pant-suit.
The delusionary public may want to ignore the ugly truth but when you consume foreign goods at this rate, at some point you must pay for it. Trade. Remember that term. TRADE. exchange of one thing for another of similar value. What are we paying with but promissory notes, IOUs?
The big lie that we can sub out our less desirable jobs to peasants overseas, and we only do the good jobs. Unless anyone has ever noticed, there never has been that many "good" jobs, as most people find anything they might be paid to do beneath them, yet will pay a personal trainer to torture them!
On a positive note...at least all those one time one way use containers will make excellent affordable housing units for our future.
they 'trade' for FRNs...ahhh, FRNs: this century's glass beads.
FRN's basically are glass; created on silicon chips via keyboard. All one big IO-Fuk-U to the rest of us.
This is the golden goose of the world reserve currecy. People give you lots of stuff for free.
Cruz, lol, maybe if you want israel to just set up shop in the Whitehouse (they are on the doorstep at the moment).
Trump, maybe, Hillery and Cruz never, both prey too much to the star of david.
Watch your vowels! Hitlery & Crudz PREY too much FOR the Star of David......and they PRAY too much TO the Star of David.
Government really can save us. If we only had the right representative.
"trump is the ONLY GUY talking about how we have gotten KILLED because of "trade deals" with mexico, china, and japan. instead, the "middle class" would rather focus on getting a few extra bucks" Trump and Sanders you mean, guess you never heard of him. Cruz ... really ... he'll have people praying for prosperity while signing TPP in and they don't have a prayer of a chance. The power of belief over knowledge is quite awesome unfortunately
love boat
SS Minnow
USCSS Nostromo.
ISIS target
a bigger ship for cargo nobody needs to sell to welfare class - aka hillary voters..
useless crap made by slaves to sell to slightly richer slaves in the west..
dollar stores, walk in one and i think the stone age had better stuff that lasted longer..heck those stone arrow heads are as good as when made 40,000 yrs ago..this china shit can't even last 6 months.
building a bigger ship is exactly what we do not need..tariffs cannot come soon enough. the future for this ship is, as a sea side appartment building in some sleazy polluted china port.
The only thing we could possibly need in that quantity is printer paper and ink
"more curious to see how this goliath of a ship handles in stormy waters"
well, better then smaller ships. it's a fact, in some things size matters, and the bigger the ship, the smaller the waves are in comparison
also speed and fuel consumption is vastly improved by lenght of the vessel
Tyler, if you want to be sarcastic about all this, why don't you look up the size of the US Merchant Fleet? it would be a further source of... hilarity, this open secret going on since the 1970's, courtesy of some imho deranged laws passed by the US Congress
the real question is how well that monster does when he goes back for the "empty trip"
when it goes back empty it can go all Edmund Fitzgerald on them for all I care .. sorry crew members
Floating Skyscraper Index...
Just wondering if it could hold a pair of every animal on the planet...
Norah's Alk.
You do realise that ship is the Baltic Dry Index.
I thought that was Hilary's Va-jay-jay
That thing is so old and dry it's like a haunted house.
convert it to a missile carrier to defeat the evil empire
Containers make nice missiles.
Containers make nice, durable homes as well. I'll be converting a few into a McMansion once I finacially recover from my divorce.
Russia have containerised their missile system so it can be a missile carrier already.
Funny, last night I watched the sinking of the Estonia documentary on Youtube. Now that's an idea to fix any glut.
Then you might enjoy the song inspired by a chance meeting in an elevator between the singer and an English survivor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syXKicKW9pI
The story left out "heading back EMPTY" to china.....
Except that it's not. it's heading back to China with tens of thousands of American jobs. But who cares ? As long as the average sucker can still buy his useless crap from Walmat then everything is good.
I haven't seen the sale of f'g waffle irons down to $2 for several years... I'm really pissed
"heading back EMPTY"
....Or filled with Recyclables to be melted down into pollution.
You guys are missing something about these "containers"..
HOUSING FOR THE SOON TO BE HOMELESS MIDDLE CLASS.
*the low income peeps already have free housing
These are new high end apartments for the San Fran tech workers. $500K a box
or the final remnants of WTC steel
and the remnants of American workers' hope for the possibility for a decent job in the US again
wtf : Its a Frenchy !
lol, Maersk has a cloned frenchy.
In fact three companies dominate the container business all of them European : Maersk, MSC, CMA.
The Americans allow the Europeans to dominate the container business.
the europeans allow the americans to allow the europeans to dominate the container business.
;-)
Love the common use of drone photography, it has become just a "friendly" citizen device, a cost saver.
Its always like this, they introduce it quietly, soon its everywhere, and any concerns over privacy or civil rights are construed as "conspiracy nut jobs".
I'll be building (but not operating cause that's illegal) a spark gap noise generator as a New Year's resolution. Fun with electrical engineering!
'going back empty'
the state of US manufacturing.....
Arriving half empty. Yellen bought the empty containers. Economy is just fine.
Even full, the ship looks to be riding high........wonder if there is anything inside the containers...........or are they just pre-fab homes in disguise.....
Even full, the ship looks to be riding high........wonder if there is anything inside the containers...........or are they just pre-fab homes in disguise.....
Full of Chinamen. Pack 50 in a box. Unload and get them EBT. Rinse and Repeat. In 5 years, 20 million Chinese
pack 200 to a box and in 65 trips brings 250 million chinese manufacturing workers to US and the politicians will say they brought manufacturing back to the US .. vote for me.... and people will go 'yipeee' like the morons so many are
These larger and larger ships make sense becasue while the boat's surface in contact with the water increases by a factor of 2 ( area is measured in square units) the volume it can carry increases by a factor of 3 ( volume is measured in cubic units).
So you're telling me that my shiny is at the bottom of the lake because I suck at trigonometry?
intelligence doesn't make up for complete lack of wisdom... epitomizes the political system
I just read that the 15-18 largest ships (like this one) put out more pollution than all the cars do together.
which is still probalby less than Obama's Air Force One golf outings.
I very highly doubt that one. Care to share the source of that one?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1229857/How-16-ships-crea...
There are other links, but this came up first. They use "bunker fuel".
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-bunker-fuel.htm
Quite literally all the crap that's left at the refinery once everything else has been produced.
Ah, ya. It's hard to get.
GOOGLE: 'How 16 ships create as much pollution as all the cars'
You will get about 10 on the first page.
So, in theory 16 biggest ship might cause more sulphur pollution than all the cars combined(if all the car fuel is regulated by the EU and the boat fuel is not). That contains as much information as if I said 3 biggest airplanes use more jetfuel than all the tractors combined.
reminds me of the Gordon Lightfoot song, "The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald."
the legend lives on
Yes, the "bigger they are the harder they fall"...came to my tiny brain. Can't wait for the first one to falter in a storm. Is anyone claiming this barge is unsinkable?
Great News
18,000 containers full of stuff that you, I and our neighbors do not make anymore.
18,000 containers full of stuff that your kids will not have a job making.
Whose idea was this shipping all our jobs to China?
That guy should hang.
For that you would need to hang Average Joe and also their neighbours John & Jane Doe.
How do you figure that?
Was there a referendum?
Can American fill that thing?
You voted with your wallet. Cheap shit at any cost. In this case, the US industrial base.
Enjoy.
This one right here is the correct answer. Not maybe you specifically, but the consumers in general is to blame.
That guy?
More than one guy gets credit.
On the bright side it will be good for trade and jobs. We can pack a few of those container ships full with lumber and parts for gallows, and that's good for the Chinese economy. Even better, it will create thousands of jobs putting those gallows together here in America, and that's good for working Americans. A win-win.
Bush family.
Clinton family.
Obama family.
"Whose idea was this shipping all our jobs to China?" every politician, media hack and American that believes in globalization
Maybe my cute little colorful plastic lawn gnomes have arrived. About time.
And your rockets.
and your salad shooter.
Not only producer states, but also private businessmen have become more active buying oil by fair or dishonest means. Some of them get too hot for profit and lose their inhibitions. Thus recently U.S. authorities revealed a corruption scheme with the contracts of Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), Venezuela’s state-owned oil company involving a Venezuelan American oil baron.
http://homment.com/when-is-oil-over
It seems that people are no longer uncomfortable with the fact that Asians make all the difficult stuff and we are more and more a bubble blower. Time changes everything.
Looks like the housing pirces in Frisco are about to tick down.
They should have called it "Harbinger of the TPP".
Wouldn't worry too much. 90% of the contents will be broken and in landfill in a couple of weeks anyway.
some are concerned about the garbage avalanches
Last I checked, 1300 feet was closer to 4 football fields than 3.
Plus a few new invasive species that have no natural enemies on this continent. Green Ash Borer, Stink Bug, Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, Asian Carp, Snakehead fish....
We haven't progressed very far from the original Chinese Junk have we?
FSA voters
Yur floodin it!
Mines bigger!
How many "Warriors" can ya get on the zodiac?
And the miracle is that there are still moron$ that dump all this crap in USSA for the worthless I$I$ "backed" Saudi Mercan IOU petroscrip food stamp toilet paper fiat dollah.
Just trading their bits of plastic and silicon for prime usa real estate.
No wonder the Baltics been crashing, one ship does it all now lol.
Walmart needed to restock after the 75% after Kwanza sales. Thank God for EBT...only thing that keeps Walmart afloat
They're shipping illegal immigrants into the country with this ship.
could carry a battalion of soldiers if requested
Look at all that iCrap!!
this ship needs it's own index.
May be small relative to the size of floating cities that one day might travel the oceans-wide if a "Water World" scenerio should ever become a reality. It has happened in ancient earth history.
Venice, Italy has been fighting global warming for many centuries
Still not big enough for all the "refugees" Obama wants to import.
8,000 TEU. NOT "18,000TEU" 18,000TEU ships do not exist.
The larger the ship, the greater the efficiancy because of the laws of physics. Several things hold back the building of larger and larger ships. Mostly available infrastructure at the ports, and ENGINE development. The largest currently available engines produce appx 100,000HP, which will propel an 8,000TEU vessel at 24-26 Knots, which is the speed required to meet shippers' demands for timely delivery.
Even though they burn 15-20% of their cargo's weight during a trans-pacific voyage, these ships are very efficient. Something like tablespoons of fuel per 1000lbs of cargo per mile.
And the shipping industry is reeling with dealing with Enviromental Regulation. Ballast water. Engine emissions. Lubrication compliance. The costs and compliance headaches are endless. Shipping is an amazing industry. The costs, competition, and technical achivement is amazing.
I remember when the 4,000TEU's were "big" in the early 90's. I'm going to the Port today. I hope this 8,000 is still there. I'd like to see it.
your lubrication compliance is complete
The 18,000 TEU ships do indeed exist. Look up Maersk EEE class for example.
Maybe we should charge them for the clean air we are shipping back to China in those containers...?
Maybe those pictures were taken with a made-in-china DJI drone.
The S.S. Queen Elizabeth, the Airbus 380, the Napier Sabre motor, the Yamato ... MV Ben Franklin. (Biggest &) best before end.