
Made in China -- Container Ship Kobe Express at Port of Oakland, California

by Darin Volpe
Title
Made in China -- Container Ship Kobe Express at Port of Oakland, California
Artist
Darin Volpe
Medium
Photograph - Photography
Description
iPods, blu-ray players, giant screen TVs, or maybe just a bunch of rubber chickens fill containers on the The German vessel "Kobe Express" arriving in Oakland, California after a trans-Pacific voyage.
The Kobe Express (originally the Shanghai Express until 2002) is a container ship that was built in 1997 by Samsung Shipbuilding & Heavy Industries. It is 965 feet in length and 105 feet wide, making it the largest size container ship able to navigate the Panama Canal before the 2016 expansion. It is owned by Hapag-Lloyd, a German transportation company headquartered in Hamburg.
Early container ships were modified World War II tankers. The first purpose built container ship was the Clifford J. Dodgers in 1955. Today, about 90% of all cargo (other than bulks such as oil, grain, etc.) is transported by container. The intermodal nature allows products to be loaded into a container and transported to the ship via truck or rail. The entire unit is loaded onto the ship by crane instead of being loaded by crews into the hold as they did before containerization. Then, upon arrival at the destination port, reloaded onto land vehicles and transported to their destination.
Uploaded
October 24th, 2013
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