China-made ship sets record on Yangtze River

A China-made ocean-going container ship has set the record for the largest vessel to sail on China’s Yangtze River.

The ship manufactured by the Nantong COSCO KHI Ship Engineering Co, is 1,312 feet long and can carry 20,000 containers.

The COSCO KHI 231, with a deck larger than four soccer fields, can also accommodate a helicopter pad. It tested the water from the shipyard port in Nantong City in East China’s Jiangsu province to the river’s estuary in Baoshan Port, Shanghai on Sunday.

“China has improved the deep-water channel of the lower stream of the Yangtze River to allow vessels weighing more than 50,000 tons to cruise.

The channel is one of the world’s busiest waterways, with the pilotage center in Nantong recording trips by 12,497 foreign and domestic vessels in 2017.