- November 22, 2019
The largest container ship to visit Jacksonville arrived at JaxPort on Thursday, the Jacksonville Port Authority announced.
The ZIM vessel Kota Pekarang stopped at JaxPort Blount Island Marine Terminal after passing through the Panama Canal on its journey from Northeast Asia.
At 11,923-TEU, the Kota Pekarang broke the port record held for a little more than a month by 11,000-TEU ZIM vessel Cape Sounio, which docked at Blount Island on March 18.
A TEU is a 20-foot container.
JaxPort said it anticipates increasingly larger vessels to visit.
JaxPort is working on a $484 million harbor deepening project to dredge an 11-mile stretch of the St. Johns River from the Atlantic Ocean to Blount Island to accommodate larger ships.
The new depth of 47 feet can accommodate the large post-Panamax ships from Asia passing through the recently enlarged Panama Canal.
According to marineinsight.com, the largest container ship in world is the 21,413-TEU OOCL Hong Kong.
It was delivered in 2017 and serves the trade lane from East Asia to Northern Europe.
