The world’s biggest container vessel, ‘MSC Irina’, arrived at the outer anchorage of Vizhinjam International Seaport on June 3 marking its first-ever call to a South Asian port.
The ship is operated by the Switzerland-based Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the world’s largest container shipping company.
The ultra-large container vessel (ULCV) is part of a six-ship Irina-class series and can carry up to 24,346 TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units), the largest container capacity for any ship in the world.
The vessel is 399.99 metres long and 61.3 metres wide, with a summer deadweight of 240,739 tonnes, making it equivalent in length to four football fields. Containers stacked aboard the ship can reach the height of a 22 to 25-storey building.
Port authorities have confirmed that the ship is expected to handle around 4,000 container movements during its stay. – Marine Insight
