Montreal City Weblog

Kate 10:04 on 2021-07-19 Permalink Reply  

• David644 12:10 on 2021-07-19 Permalink

  This is a post-Panamax ship, which is big and the biggest class we can berth, but not near the biggest out there.

  Since I’m on the subject, if people are curious, there’s an excellent Trade Talks installment that explains the birth of container shipping: https://www.tradetalkspodcast.com/podcast/133-how-one-man-and-some-metal-boxes-revolutionized-global-trade/

  I don’t think that episode explains how we get vessel classes though. Essentially, until very recently, it was all down to the capacity of the Panama Canal. This is how you get the first super container ship, the Panamax, which was built to the exact width and depth (ship draft) of the Panama Canal – anything larger couldn’t get through, and anything smaller left money on the table. The Canal and the ship classes grow together – showing the creativity typical of the shipping industry, the next were the Post-Panamax, and the Neo-Panamax. There’s another class too that navigates only the open ocean and the Suez Canal, imaginatively called the Ultra Large.

  Arecibo’s collapse last year taught me a valuable lesson. All my life I had wanted to visit Arecibo and now I can’t. There are a few other iconic destinations on that list, including Biosphere 2, which I just returned from. But aside from Arecibo, the number 1 is the Panama Canal. Pre-Covid, I had this plan to fly down to Argentina and then book passage on a container ship from Buenos Aires through the Canal to Panama City. Late March 2022, you’ll me there.

  And since this is a completely random and highly self-indulgent post, I’ll also add that even if you’re not a lover of South American maritime history, the place you didn’t know you wanted to visit is Valparaiso, Chile.