China’s Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard is squeezing more slots onto its megamax designs to break new size records for container shipping.
The MSC Tessa has been floated out of its dock at Jiangnan Changxing Shipyard this week. While featuring the same dimensions as the Ever Alot, the world’s first ship to breach the 24,000 teu mark, the new, black-hulled leviathan has an extra 112 slots on it, which means box shipping has a new record holder. The MSC Tessa has a carrying capacity of 24,116 teu.
The 399.99 m long vessel is one of four Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) has on order at the yard, which is part of China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC).
The extra slots from the so-called Hudong type class of boxships compared to the Ever Alot, built by the same yard, were achieved via optimising the superstructure and the radar mast according to CSSC.
Containership size records have repeatedly been broken in recent years, climbing above the 20,000 teu mark for the first time in 2017. Boxships have more than tripled in size in terms of carrying capacity since the start of the century.
