The largest ship ever to enter the Thames arrived at DP World London Gateway, the U.K.’s new deepwater container port. The 397-meter-long, 56-meter-wide Edith Mærsk has a draught of 16 meters and carries up to 15,500 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units).
A time-lapse video of Edith Mærsk at DP World London Gateway is available here.
“The arrival of the Edith Mærsk is a historic moment,” said DP World CEO Simon Moore. “This is one of the world’s largest ships and the biggest ever to enter the Thames. Our high-tech facilities give us the capability to handle ships like Edith Mærsk only 30 miles from the center of London. By bringing the biggest ships in the world closer to U.K. consumers we are now reducing U.K. import and export costs. As we approach our first year of opening, we are delighted to see Edith Mærsk at DP World London Gateway.”
DP World London Gateway operates eight of the U.K.’s largest quay cranes; their air draft and overreach capabilities mean that the port is equipped to handle the world’s largest vessels of today and tomorrow.
The Edith Mærsk is deployed on Mærsk Line’s AE2 (Asia-Europe 2) service. The next stop is Singapore. Next month (November), DP World London Gateway will celebrate its first anniversary. Since the first scheduled ship call by the MOL Caledon marked the official opening on November 7, 2013, the port has welcomed a series of new shipping services and continued to develop new berths and facilities. It also provided a sheltered ‘haven’ during last winter’s storms, with a series of large containerships diverting to DP World London Gateway when other ports were forced to close, helping to keep the U.K. supplied with goods.
More than 10,000 people have worked at DP World London Gateway since the project was given the go-ahead in 2008. The port has seen a string of firsts, including the first ever female Quay Crane driver to work in a U.K. container port.