Container ships have played a major role in globalization, as they’ve helped facilitate international trade, making the transportation of commodities more accessible, quicker, and affordable. 

Below, we’ll discuss the history of container ships, cover the different types of vessels, and explore their different sizes. 

what are container ships?

A container ship is a cargo ship designed to transport intermodal containers that hold goods and products. The deck of a container ship is like a warehouse with cells that hold the containers.

These container ships travel all around the world, stopping at ports where they offload their cargo onto trains, trucks, other vessels, or warehouses. 

Using a technique called containerization that was developed in the 1950s, container ships consolidate their cargo into the containers and stack them along their decks. Prior to the adoption of grouping cargo together into containers in this way, every piece of bulk cargo was individually loaded and loaded off vessels, which was a time-consuming and costly process. 

The introduction of container ships and containerization reduced the expense of international trade and cut shipping times by 84%. Today, these vessels are responsible for transporting the vast majority of the world’s manufactured goods. 

The Origins of Container Ships

Ships have been transporting standardized cargo loads since the late 18th century, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that container ships began hitting the waters. 

The first models were actually leftover oil tankers from World War II. In fact, one of the first successful container ships was a surplus T2 tanker designed to carry 58 metal containers.

Of course, container ships have continued to evolve over the years, keeping up with technological advancements and market demand. Due to these changes, container ships are classified by six date ranges:

  • First Generation: 1956 to 1970
  • Second Generation: 1970 to 1980
  • Third Generation: 1980 to 1988
  • Fourth Generation: 1988 to 2000
  • Fifth Generation: 2000 to 2005
  • Sixth Generation: 2006 to current 

Container Ship Sizes

While modern-day container ships have certainly undergone many changes, nothing is quite as stark as their differences in size when compared to the earliest models. Some of today’s ships have doubled in size when compared to those that were released in 2000 alone. To help you picture just how big they are, one of the largest modern container ships is longer than the Eiffel Tower, while another is taller than the Empire State Building!

So, why are container ships getting bigger? The bigger the container ship, the more it can carry, and the greater the capacity, the lower the cost per container. Therefore, large ships are one of the most cost-effective options when it comes to transporting cargo, but not without pitfalls of course. Carrying more and larger containers does have some risk. 

Below is a breakdown of the container ship sizing based on their capacity, which is measured in TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units):

  • Earliest Container Ships: 500 to 800 TEU
  • Panamax: 3,000 to 3,400 TEU
  • Post-Panamax: 4,000 to 6,000 TEU
  • Very Large Container Ships: 11,000 to 14,500 TEU
  • New-Panamax: 12,500 TEU
  • Ultra Large Container Ships: 18,000 to 20,000 TEU
  • Megamax: 21,000+ TEU

Interested in learning more about how container ships fit into the picture when it comes to the shipping industry? Contact Falvey Insurance Group today!