MSC Irina, the world's largest container ship with a maximum container capacity of 24,346 TEUs (20-foot equivalent unit), docked at Nansha Port in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, on Monday, the port company said.
The ship will dock at a container terminal in the port's second phase before heading to the Mediterranean, transporting various products, including intelligent home appliances, photovoltaic products, textiles, and furniture, produced in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
The vessel, built by Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Group in Jiangsu province, measures approximately 400 meters in length and 61.3 meters in width. It can accommodate up to 25 layers of single containers, equivalent to the height of a 22-story building.
The port company referred to it as a "sea giant," and if its containers were lined up end-to-end, they would stretch from Guangzhou to Hong Kong.
The Mediterranean route from Nansha Port already has 13 large ships equipped with a maximum container capacity of over 19,000 TEUs, including the MSC Irina. Nansha Port, which is an important part of the Guangzhou Port Group, has 20 large container berths with a capacity of over 100,000 tons each and an annual container throughput capacity exceeding 24 million TEUs.
The berths are equipped with advanced hardware facilities for terminal management systems.