Due to globalization and the increase in maritime connectivity in ports around the world, freight transportation has required structural, technical and technological change to be able to send and distribute cargo to all markets. Without a doubt, the main players have been container ships that have constantly grown in size. This trend may continue, with the creation of even larger ships designed and built to accommodate greater volumes of cargo in a single voyage. The reason is very clear, by the same logic that governs most businesses, whether they are carried out on sea, land or air, it is the search for greater profitability.
Future container ships are likely to incorporate advanced technologies to improve efficiency, reduce emissions and increase safety. This may include the use of alternative fuels, automation, artificial intelligence and digitalization. Without a doubt, the fate of container ships will be influenced by an amalgamation of technological advances, environmental regulations, market fluctuations and infrastructure progress.
But in the space of three years, the Ever Given ship incident in the Suez Canal and the recent tragic accident of the Dali ship in Baltimore shocked the entire world. Although the two ships were of two different classes, the first is a Triple E type with a length of 400 meters and the second a New Panamax of 300, they correspond to the classes of ships that are revolutionizing maritime trade today. To illustrate the evolution over the years, in 1996, the largest container ship in the world had a capacity of 7,000 containers. However, in 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, this capacity had skyrocketed to 24,000 containers.
If we refer to the Triple E, the efficiency is found in the fact that they can triple the cargo without needing to expand the crew, reducing the cost of transporting goods by 30% due to the scale of the cargo volume. If we refer to the New Panamax, they have just the right measurements to pass through the new expansion of the Panama Canal, which offers them much more flexibility.
On the other hand, barely more than 20 ports in the world have the appropriate infrastructure to receive Triple E ships, so in coming years many ports will have to adapt to these new conditions so as not to be excluded from global trade routes. The depth of a conventional commercial port is around 14 meters, but the Triple E requires at least 17 meters; many ports will have to be dredged or new ports adapted to these depths should be built from scratch. Many bridges found at the entrance to bays, fjords or estuaries limit the entrance due to their height. In the same way, many buoyed channels that enter or exit port have the same width as before the excessive growth of these ships.
The stay of these ships in port is relatively short and the plans ensure that the entry and exit traffic is continuous, day and night. The maneuvers are always carried out with a pilot on board and when an incident appears, such as what happened with the Ever Given or the Dali, if it occurs in a compromised place, the ability to react, no matter how well those on board do it, may be not be enough.
We could talk about the training of crew members and pilots, the maintenance of ships, the non-obligation of hiring a tugboat to escort the canals, but here we would touch on a very obscure point that we can leave for a future occasion.
