In early February we said that the 200,000-ton CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin was expected to pull into Elliott Bay and dock in Seattle sometime around the end of the month. They nailed it.
The 1,300-foot long vessel, bigger than three football fields back-to-back, has made it to The Northwest Seaport Alliance’s Terminal 18. The reason for the stop is actually as a test, to see how quickly port cranes can load and unload the ship in order to find out whether or not the infrastructure needs improvement. The ship will be unloading goods from China and taking on agricultural goods from eastern Washington. It will remain docked until Tuesday morning.
The Ben Franklin can carry up to 18,000, 20-foot shipping containers and while there aren't many ships of its size, more and more ships are being built bigger. Seattle's ability to load and unload them quickly and without incident will go a long way in showing the world that this is still a port worth stopping at.
Ferry Tacoma and Ben Franklin (container ship) enter the har(bor)... #Seattle (photo by: @komonews) pic.twitter.com/DDl4NyzvBv
— WA State Ferries (@wsferries) February 29, 2016
@king5seattle #benjaminfranklin in Seattle. For scale, 2 ships in foreground are Bainbridge / Bremerton Ferries pic.twitter.com/OFXoxAK2a3
— Mark Kurtz (@markkurtz) February 29, 2016
The CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin, the largest container ship every to call on a U.S. port, is towed to Seattle's Termi… pic.twitter.com/kiMUaEfNuI
— seattlepi (@seattlepi) February 29, 2016
· Massive cargo ship arrives in Seattle’s Elliott Bay [ST]
· A 200,000-Ton Container Ship is Headed Straight for Seattle [CS]