A tour of the largest container ship to enter Puget Sound

Shot from Sunset Hill, the Benjamin Franklin steams south towards Seattle

At 2130 hours on Sunday night, the largest container ship ever to enter the Salish Sea rounded Cape Flattery and began her first ever trip down the Strait of Juan de Fuca. She loafed down the straits well under normal cruising speed and on Monday at 0630 passed by Shilshole Bay Marina. Ninety minutes later, the UK flagged CMA-CGM Benjamin Franklin berthed at Seattle’s Terminal 18.

She’s 1,309 feet long, 177 feet wide and draws 53 feet. Fully loaded she can carry 18,000 TEU’s (twenty foot container equivalents). For comparison, that’s roughly the entire annual volume for Limited Brands. In three trips she could hold all of Gap’s annual product. She burns 330 tons of fuel each day. Within 200 miles of the U.S. coast she burns low sulphur fuel and while docked the engines are turned off and city power is utilized.

Not only was she the largest container ship to enter Puget Sound, she is currently the largest container ship to ever dock in North America. Launched last December, this was her second trip and at the moment, she can’t be filled to capacity to call on any West Coast port. The cranes at the Port of Los Angeles can only lift to 133 feet high. Seattle has cranes that can lift to 145 feet. If the Benjamin Franklin was fully loaded, she’d need cranes that could lift to 170 feet high.

This ship is only the first in a wave of mega-container ships. By way of comparison, many of the larger container ships calling into Seattle are 8 to 10 thousand TEU’s (20 foot containers). At 18,000 TEU’s, the Benjamin Franklin is a quantum leap larger.

While they are more economical for carriers to move freight and they appear to be more efficient to unload (according to data from the Journal of Commerce) they do create challenges for terminals. Harbor depth is not an issue in Seattle, but depth in the berth is. Considerable infrastructure would be needed to maximize the usage of these ships.

I was lucky enough to be invited aboard the Benjamin Franklin on Monday. Just getting to the main deck requires a very long gangplank and the bridge is seven stories above that. The sense of scale is off the charts.

Approaching the ship

The gangplank

How about that freeboard!?

After being herded into a very small elevator (I don’t think they thought we could climb seven stories) we arrived at the bridge where the captain held court answering questions. He mentioned that this ship was a little easier to handle than the “smaller” container ships, owing to the Benjamin Franklin’s massive rudder. That, and the two 5,000 horsepower bow thrusters. Each.

Unloading operations were being monitored from an office just off the main deck

Looking forward from the bridge

And what a pilot house!

After touring a recreational lounge and a cabin for guests, we descended into the bowls of the ship to view the engine “room.” Call it an engine cavern. Rated at some 64,000 Kilowatts, the engine could power a town of 16,000 people.

To get a sense of scale, look at the folks on the rail at the other end of the engine

From the other end of the cavern

This visit was a test and the initial (and very preliminary) perception was that the Port of Seattle is rising to the challenge.  The ship took a little longer to dock than usual, so while the unloading started a little late, the productivity was reported as “good.” This was merely an informal assessment, but there didn’t appear to be any major issues as the cranes did their work.

The tour was all too brief, but it offered a glimpse into the future of global shipping as the larger ships become more the norm.