This is also billed as the biggest vessel to berth in South Asia, as the biggest vessels berthed in Colombo like Ever Ace and Ever Alot have lesser capacity than MSC Claude Girardet. The largest modern container ships in the world can carry over 20,000 TEU, leading to the creation of a new size categorisation, Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs). Coming from the transshipment port Tanjung Pelepas (Malaysia), the ship with a length of 400 m, width of 61.5 m, and draft of 16.7 m, can carry 24,116 containers in the deck, which is roughly equal to the size of four standard soccer fields.
The ship can carry over 2,40,000 tonnes of cargo in 25 layers in a single voyage. Lower carbon emission is the specialty of ultra large vessels.
Deep draft
A crew member of the ship that sailed into the port a few days ago said the deep draft available at Vizhinjam was the main factor drawing the ultra large vessels to the port.
If there was 1 m under keel clearance (UKC), the minimum distance between the bottom of a ship and the ocean floor, ships could sail into a port. At Vizhinjam, most parts of the channel had around 18.6-m depth and some areas had 20-m depth. This was the natural depth without dredging, and this was enough for positioning Vizhinjam as a major transshipment hub on the global shipping map, he said. Already, five ships from the MSC have berthed at the port, latest being MSC Kayley with a 16.5-m draft.