Ga. welcomes big ship that ‘takes up the whole river’
Associated Press
SAVANNAH, Ga. — The largest cargo ship ever to visit ports on the U.S. East Coast is so long the Statue of Liberty and Washington Monument could fit end-toend along its deck and still leave room for Big Ben.
The COSCO Development arrived Thursday at the Port of Savannah after cruising past dozens of onlookers who cheered and took photos of the mammoth vessel from Savannah’s downtown riverfront. Its first East Coast voyage marks a new era for U.S. ports that, despite years spent anticipating the supersized ships, will struggle to accommodate them without major infrastructure improvements.
“It takes up the whole river!” Andrew Evans, who served as a ship’s officer in the 1960s, exclaimed to his wife as the ship slowly lumbered into view, the cargo containers stacked on its deck towering above trees on the shore.
“The largest ships I was on, you could fit 10 of them on that ship,” Mr. Evans said. “Maybe more.”
At 1,200 feet bow-to-stern, the COSCO Development is longer than the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford. It can carry 13,000 cargo containers measuring 20 feet long apiece. That’s 30 percent more capacity than the last record-breaking ship that sailed into Savannah last summer.
The ship appeared to fit under the Talmadge Memorial Bridge, which clears the water by about 185 feet, by only several feet. The mammoth freighter arrived during high tide, the only time a ship that big can enter Savannah’s relatively shallow channel.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the process of deepening the channel to allow for ever-larger cargo ships. The cost of that project, however, recently spiked, and the project will take two years longer than expected to finish, with completion now expected in early 2022.
The big ship, flagged out of Hong Kong and owned by China-based COSCO Shipping Lines, is also the largest to pass through the Panama Canal following a major expansion last year. Its arrival on the East Coast shows shippers aren’t waiting for the seaports scrambling to deepen their harbors so the larger ships can pass fully loaded at low tide.
Overall, 15 U.S. seaports on the East and Gulf coasts are seeking $4.6 billion after being authorized by Congress to make room for bigger ships. Only three of those have cleared the permit requirements needed to start digging, said Jim Walker, navigation policy director for the American Association of Port Authorities.
Meanwhile, the largest ships using the Panama Canal must carry lighter loads or wait for higher tides before calling on most U.S. ports on the East Coast.