Ship Photos of the Day – First ‘Megaship’ Sails Into San Francisco Bay

Photo: Port of Oakland

The biggest containership to ever visit North America sailed into San Francisco Bay last week for its inaugural visit to the Port of Oakland.

The CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin, with capacity to carry 18,000 twenty-foot containers, docked at the port’s Outer Harbor on the morning of December 31, 2015 after calling at the Port of Los Angeles earlier in the week.

The arrival of the vessel symbolically opens the Trans-Pacific trade route between Asia and North America to so-called megaships, although many question whether the U.S. is ready to regularly receive vessels of this size. 

The Benjamin Franklin is owned by France’s CMA CGM Group, who says the ship will operate on its Pearl River Express, a regular service connecting some of China’s main ports, including Xiamen, Nansha and Yantian, with Los Angeles and Oakland.