Hanjin Philippines wins order for four 12,800 TEU containerships

Shipping fund specialist Lloyd Fonds AG and shipowner NSC Schifffahrtsgesellschaft mbH und Cie. KG, both of Hamburg, have ordered four 12,800 TEU containerships (plus four options) that will be built at Hanjin Heavy Industries and Construction's HHIC-Phil yard, Subic Bay, Philippines. Deliveries will start in 2010.

LLoyd Fonds says the newbuildings belong to a new generation of containerships, whose dimensions are already designed for the forthcoming enlargement of the Panama Canal.

They will have a capacity of 1,000 FEU reefer containers.

The ships will be built to Germanischer Lloyd class and will have a length of 365.6 m, a breadth of 48.4 m and a main machinery output of 68.520 kW (93,120 hp).

How do their dimensions stack up against the world's largest containership. Emma Maersk? Though the Lloyd's Fonds ships have a larger stated TEU capacity, 12,800 TEU, against the Emma's 11,000 TEU, they will actually be somewhat under the Emma's 397 m length and 56 m beam and will have less power than the Maersk ship's 80,800 kW.

In other words, Emma Maersk and its sisters still hold the the "world's largest" crown (and would have a TEU capacity of upwards of 13,500 if Maersk calculated capacity the way everyone else does).