Preface. The article below makes the case for the hazards of one of these enormous ships running aground or sinking, blocking a major shipping line, leaking oil, and possibly impossible to salvage.
In 2020, the largest container ship is the HMM Algeciras at 1,312 feet (400 m) long and 200 feet (61 m) wide, much larger than the Titanic, which was 882 feet long and 92 feet wide (Bell 2020).
To see where the all ships are go this marinetraffic.com link, where you can filter the map by type of ship, weight, and other parameters in the tool bar on the left side.
Gray, W. 20 November 2013. Don’t abandon ship! A new generation of monster ships will be even harder to rescue. NewScientist.
Should any of the new monster-sized ships run aground or sink, the resulting chaos could block a major shipping lane and create an environmental disaster that could bankrupt ship owners and the insurance industry alike. With vessels of this size conventional salvage will be all but impossible.
Despite a steady rise in air and road transport, our reliance on shipping remains overwhelming: ships move roughly 90% of all global trade, carrying billions of tons of manufactured goods and raw materials.
These monster ships are already plying the seas. There are 29 bulk carriers about 360 meters long (1181 feet). Designed to feed Brazilian iron ore to furnaces in China and Europe, each is capable of carrying up to 400,000 tons. More are on order.
The most rapid increase in size has come with container ships. In the 1990s the largest carried about 5000 shipping containers; the Maersk Mc-Kinney Møller can carry 18,000. Shipyards will soon begin work on the next generation, some 40 meters longer and capable of carrying 20,000 containers, and there are rumors of even larger vessels to come.
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