The origins of purpose built container ships
Today, the ships which are used to carry shipping containers are some of the most lavish and expensive vessels in the world. Yet, the first purpose built ships for this job were developed in Denmark over fifty years ago.
These ships started off by transporting containers between Alaska and Seattle back in 1951 and four years later, the first intermodal container system employed the grand ship “Clifford J Rogers”. The maiden trip transported six hundred containers from British Columbia to Alaska. On reaching their destination, the containers were all removed from the ship and were transported to Yukon via railroad cars.
The American shipping container industry also began in the 1950s and owes much to the exploits of Malcolm McLean. He transported fifty eight containers from Newark to Houston in a renovated taker ship back in 1956. The idea of employing large containers which were not entered during transportation, and transferred on an intermodal basis with ships, truck and railroad cars was an innovative one at that time.
It is thought that McLean preferred the building of “trailerships” at first – these would transport trailers from large lorries and stow them within the cargo hold of the ship. This stowage method, known as “roll on / roll off” was rejected however, due to the fact that there would be a great amount of waste in available cargo space – known as “broken stowage”. As an alternative, McLean amended is original idea to loading the containers on to the ship but not the chassis.
