CSCL Globe: Maiden Voyage for World's Largest Containership

The world's newly crowned largest ship by container volume made her imposing maiden call on Singapore on Thursday- dwarfing nearby vessels, reports Singapore-based Strait Times.

The colossal CSCL Globe, which steamed into a new berth at Pasir Panjang port, is 400m long, almost 60m wide, and weighs in at more than 56,000 tonnes without cargo.

The surface area of the more than $150 million titan is so vast it could fit four football fields.

The CSCL Globe has about the same dimensions as the previous holder of the title of the world's largest ship, the Maersk Triple E, which called at Singapore last year.

However, the CSCL Globe eclipses that giant of the seas as it can carry 19,100 standard 20ft containers - or about 1,000 more than a Triple E and enough to hold goods as heavy as 328 fully loaded Airbus 380s.

Only 23 men are needed to crew the vessel, and they use elevators to navigate the decks. The crew have access to gym and sauna facilities.

Deployed by China Shipping Container Lines (CSCL) to serve the Asia-Europe route, the CSCL Globe left Tianjin on Dec 1 on its maiden voyage to Belgium's Zeebrugge before returning to Asia.

It left Singapore at 4pm yesterday and is now headed for Britain.