Biggest container ship under the German flag visits Port of Hamburg on maiden voyage

In the night of 20 November 2008 the new flag ship of the German CONTI shipping company, coming from Southampton, put in to the Port of Hamburg for the first time. With a container slot capacity of 11,038 TEUs (20-foot standard containers), the CMA CGM VELA is the biggest container ship to have visited the Port of Hamburg to date. The unloading and loading of some 4000 containers was carried out by HHLA Container Terminal Burchardkai (CTB).

The container giant is the 109th ship to be commissioned for the fleet of the Buxtehude ship-ping company NSB Niederelbe Schifffahrtsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG. It will be used under the charter name of MS CMA CGM VELA in the regular container service of the French shipping company CMA CGM between China and Europe. The Port of Hamburg is the only German port to which the service puts in. Ports of call in China and the Far East are Chiwan (Shenzhen), Busan, Kwangyang, Dalian, Xingang, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Yantian, Singapore and Port Kelang. The CMA CGM VELA has a length of 347.48 metres, a width of 45.2 metres and a maximum draught of 15.5 metres. With a load of 130,700 tons, the mega-carrier travels at a speed of 24.3 knots.