A 23,000-TEU Container Vessel
Samsung Heavy Industries has built the world’s largest container ship that is 400 meters long, 61.5 meters wide and 33.2 meters high.
Samsung Heavy Industries said on July 8 that it had successfully completed the construction of a 23,000-TEU container ship that can carry 23,756 20-foot containers at a time. It is the first of the six vessels that the company will build for Swiss shipping company MSC. Samsung was awarded the project in September 2017.
Christened “The MSC Gulsun,” the vessel has a special meaning which differentiates it from other container ships built by Samsung. It is the largest container ships that have been built to date in the world. The length of one 20-foot container is about 6.1 meters. So if you line up the 23,756 containers, it will be a whopping 145 kilometers long in total.
The ship is also loaded with the next-generation smart ship system “SVESSEL,” developed independently by Samsung Heavy Industries. The system enables safe and economical operations. The vessel is an eco-friendly LNG-ready smart ship designed to be easily converted into an LNG-powered ship to meet sulfur emission regulations.
Samsung Heavy Industries has been leading the way in expanding the size of container ships since the 1990s. In 1990, when 5,000-TEU ships were the mainstream, the shipbuilder developed the world's first 6,200-TEU vessel. In 2000, it built container ships that can transport more containers at higher speed, such as 7,700-TEU and 8,100-TEU ships. In 2004, the company successfully developed a 12,000-TEU container ship, doubling the maximum capacity of a container ship in five years.
In 2015, Samsung received an order for four 20,000-TEU container ships from MOL of Japan, opening up the 20,000-TEU container ship era. Samsung Heavy Industries renewed the world record in this segment once again with the delivery of the 23,000-TEU container ship.