There is always a little bit of good amidst the chaos. Right now the world needs a little bit of something to distract them from what is happening with Covid 19. The exciting news it that The Ever Ace docked in Felixstowe, Suffolk, early on Sunday morning on her maiden voyage.
The 400m-long (1,300ft) ship has a capacity for 23,992 standard containers, which is slightly more than similar-sized vessels. A spokesman for the Port of Felixstowe said 7,000 TEUs (20ft equivalent units) were offloaded from the vessel. He said a similar number of containers, which were mostly empty, were then loaded on to the ship before it set sail for Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The megaship, operated by the Taiwan-based container shipping company Evergreen Marine, is due to pass through the Suez Canal later this month.
Its sister ship, Ever Given, blocked the channel earlier this year and was stuck in Egypt for almost a week, causing disruption to global shipping, before itself arriving at the Suffolk port last month. The Ever Ace is the first in a planned series of 12 supersized container ships to be built for Evergreen Marine.
Felixstowe is no stranger to big ships, having welcomed the MSC Gulson two years ago, which is almost identical in size to the Ever Ace but is said to carry 28 fewer containers. The latest giant arrival docked in Suffolk from Hamburg, having left China in August.
Brian Ince is on holiday in Suffolk with his wife Elaine and said he wanted to see the Ever Ace “because it’s the largest”. The 53-year-old from Manchester said they came on Monday to see the ship “and sat in the car in the drizzle” at Landguard Point in Felixstowe. He admitted the couple could not “see a great deal” from the beach but did not want to miss it after being unable to come and see the Ever Given.
“It’s just the fascination of how the ships are loaded, with the Lorries on and off, it’s like clockwork,” he said.
