The data visualization above represents the worlds 10 largest container shipping companies by TEU capacity. We created this chart using IBM’s Many Eye’s project which we enjoy using since it gives us a clear, easy to understand and interactive picture of numeric data. Plus it looks pretty cool.
Want to know which company has the largest number of ships or the highest percentage of the overall market? If so then click on the picture above for the interactive version.
For those who prefer more traditional data:
| Company |
TEU capacity |
Market Share |
Number of ships |
| A.P. Moller-Maersk Group |
1,665,272 |
18.2% |
549 |
| Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A. |
865,890 |
8.6% |
299 |
| CMA CGM |
507,954 |
5.6% |
256 |
| Evergreen Marine Corporation |
477,911 |
5.2% |
153 |
| Hapag-Lloyd |
412,344 |
4.5% |
140 |
| China Shipping Container Lines |
346,493 |
3.8% |
111 |
| American President Lines |
331,437 |
3.6% |
99 |
| Hanjin-Senator |
328,794 |
3.6% |
145 |
| COSCO |
322,326 |
3.5% |
118 |
| NYK Line |
302,213 |
3.3% |
105 |
(Source: 2006 BRS Report)
We recently ran across some interesting statistics from a 2005 joint study on manpower from BIMCO and the ISF.
Q: How many officers are currently employed aboard ships?
A: Approximately 466,000
Here’s a chart of the numbers;
Regarding this chart the study notes:
An updated estimate of global seafarer supply has been produced based on the most recent national statistics provided by authorities in almost all principal labor supply and other maritime countries. The worldwide supply of seafarers in 2005 is estimated to be 466,000 officers and 721,000 ratings. The OECD countries (North America, Western Europe, Japan etc.) remain an important source of officers, although Eastern Europe has become increasingly significant with a large increase in officer numbers. The Far East and South East Asia (the “Far East”), and the Indian sub-continent remain the largest sources of supply of ratings and are rapidly becoming a key source of officers.
Here is the age structure of officers from OECD countries;
The study tells us:
The world fleet continues to rely heavily on officers from Europe, North America, Japan and other OECD countries However, over 25% of these are over 50 years old, and well over50% are over 40. Most are in senior positions such as Masters or Chief Engineers. The impact of their retirement, without adequate numbers of well trained and experienced replacements, could be severe.
The study itself discus, in depth, manpower issues facing the industry. You can download the report summary, including more information on the above charts HERE or the full report HERE.
gCaptain’s all time favorite TV commercial and worst nightmare.
Funniest video of last year! Thanks, Berlitz
(Is your company blocking access? View the file here: LINK )
Click on the image for the Hi-Res version. The photo was taken using a technique we published in a story titled “Shipboard Digital Camera Tricks“. Many more great moon pictures by the photographer, Licya, can be found HERE.
We are starting a new feature here on gCaptain titled “Interesting Ship Of The Week” and the first vessel we’d like to share this unusual barge transporter near Krasnoyarskaya Russia.
Unfortunately we don’t have many details but the pictures tell most of the story. Visit EnglishRussia.com for the high resolution images.
UPDATE:
Capdiamont offers the details behind this railed giant;
I can’t find the original source he used, but it is a massive electrically powered rack railway that hauls ships, up and over a dam in Russia. At the top it has a turntable so the locomotive can be turned to keep it’s load straight, no matter which way it goes. Think of the top of the dam as the crest. In order to keep the downhill side always downhill, you have to turn it. This one is unusual because the top of the turntable is slanted to keep the locomotive slanted, so the load stays level. Add to all this, is the massive size of everything. This has to be the longest, and heaviest turntable in the world.
If you look at some of the pictures, you can see the gears to mesh in to the rails. That is my reasoning for it to be a rack railway, even though it doesn’t have the traditional center rack, like you would think. (Source: Capdiamont)
We are glad to get the facts behind this story. Honest thanks also goes out to NavaGear for the English lesson in the comments.
MarineBuzz points us to Norway’s plan to build a One Nautical Mile long tunnel for ships. Reuters tells us:
Norway has drawn up plans to build the world’s first shipping tunnel which would save time and money for vessels passing through a coastal area known for its dangerous seas.
Strong winds, high waves and powerful currents in the area of Stad on the southwest coast of Norway cause long delays while ships wait for calmer conditions.
The tunnel, estimated to cost around $310 million and take five years to build, would cut through a peninsula, saving ships the risky journey around the coastline. Continue Reading…
While the concept isn’t new, France has been building tunnels for barges since the 19th century, this is the first tunnel of it’s size. Head over to Marine Buzz for more photos and information.
With a 5m LOA (nearly three times larger than G.I. Joe’s Carrier) Gizmodo brings us the World’s Largest Toy Aircraft Carrier:
“an absolutely enormous Lego aircraft carrier. Made from over 200,000 individual bricks, the leviathan weighs in at just over 350 pounds. It has working aircraft elevators, a hangar, radar dishes, electrical lights and a working catapult/slingshot for launching the jets.”
Take a look at Malle Hawking’s impressive work: Link
So the gCaptain team has been exceptionally busy in the last few weeks and we have the Cosco Busan partially to thank. In addition to the server traffic and time spent researching the incident we were motivated by the events to embark on some new projects. You already now the good news, the successful launch of a new maritime podcast! Unfortunately, however, we also had a time consuming failure.
A little history…. Shortly after the ship allided with San Francisco’s Bay Bridge we pointed you to the amazing website BoatingSF.com. Run by Michael Slater, a former Adobe Engineer, the site uses AIS vessel tracking data taken from VHF radio antennas Michael has erected near the bay and uses this to plot ships to a live interactive map embedded on his site (LINK). The post that day, however, displayed recorded data showing the track of the Cosco Busan during her short voyage. The display was impressive and attracted a considerable amount of attention.
At this point of the story we had just finished reading an amazing article written for Geo: Magazine by John Astad, our friend from Vesseltrax. The subject of the article was Shore-Side Maritime Applications of Google Earth and discussed his ability to visualize 3d images of ships running the Houston Ship Channel. Even cooler was the ability to fly around a vessel as she moved about the bay… in real time! (LINK) So I contacted Michael and asked if he would send the data file to John for 3d conversion!
The stars seemed to be aligning until we discovered a problem (read about it here) that resulted in John not being able to convert the data for use in his program. Discouraged? Yes but in stepped a gCaptain reader who we can’t thank enough. He transposed the timestamps from regional AIS beacons and helped us create a ShipPlotter version (Disclaimer here and ShipPlotter results here) of the events. Not quite accurate but close enough for our next team to start work…
Jakota “is engaged in the development and sale of solutions aimed at the commercial sector and public services, as well as the field of research and science. We supply solutions for tracking, fleet management, positioning and security- and alarm systems.” Translated; they make the best 3d ship graphing websites on the planet. They also provide amazing tools for tracking fleets of ships that are visually stunning, effective and well thought out.
You ask, how did we find Jakota? We asked our friends in silicon valley to search for a company that provides AIS vessel tracking systems that first, have visually attractive solutions, second use the latest tools of web 2.0. The overwhelming response was “Check out Digital-Seas.com“.
Fast forward through the time changes, international calling codes and German accents… we finally got in touch with Lars Krueger, one of the nicest and most professional person we have met. Lars took a programmer off his job to work on our project full time… the results were stunning but the harder we work the more faulty data we found.
The bottom line… we worked hard, had fun, met some amazing people and built relationships for the future. The final result is not 100% accurate and was compressed to meat BoatingSF’s needs but still looks amazing (you should see the original!!) We also started on a new project, global AIS and vessel tracking… but that’s for another post. In the meantime, if your a marine superintendent Lars is a person you need to know. If you’re a mariner interested in tracking ships so you don’t have to spend days in sitting in the union hall… Digital-Seas is the website you will know.
Many thanks to all who helped and stay tuned for more on the amazing people and products we met while working on this project. For a preview visit these amazing sites;
Enough discussion… to see the Cosco Busan’s Track CLICK HERE
Note: The source of our problem was the USCG’s reluctance to release the official AIS data files. If you wish to see the amazing visualizations of Digital Seas… in full size… with accurate data… call your congressman and ask for the file to be released to the public.
U.S. International Container Trades by Port, 2001-2006 Visualized (Thousand TEU’s)
Source: Port Import/Export Reporting System (PIERS). Detailed data available at www.piers.com.
More Visualizations (that you can play with!) over at IBM’s Many Eyes Project:
While this does not take into account size of respective fleets (click here for that information) the following graph shows the number of detentions recorded by Paris MOU with respect to Flag State.
