Ship Photos of The Day - Mærsk McKinney-Møller Departs Busan on Maiden Voyage

MV Mærsk McKinney-Møller

Today’s ship photos are from Busan, South Korea where Maersk Line’s first Triple-E and the world’s largest ship, MV Mærsk McKinney-Møller, has departed on her maiden voyage after calling at Busan New Port on Monday.

The Mærsk McKinney-Møller departed Busan late afternoon Tuesday and continued her voyage towards Kwangyang, South Korea. The ETA in Kwangyang is 17 July at 02:00.

As Captain Jes Meinertz put it: “It was nice to see containers on deck.”

Captain Jes Meinertz will be in charge from her maiden call in Busan until it arrives in Aarhus, Denmark on 26 August, at which point he will be replaced by Captain Niels Vestergaard Pedersen who will then do a complete round-trip.

The 20 Triple-E vessels will operate in a loop on the world’s busiest trade lane, carrying cargo between eight ports in Asia and six in Europe (Busan, Kwangyang, Shanghai, Ningbo, Yantian, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tanjung Pelepas, Tangiers, Rotterdam, Bremerhaven, Gdansk, Aarhus, and Gothenburg).

The ship will start off sailing below capacity -averaging 14,000 TEUs at first- since many port gantries aren’t tall enough to handle a full load, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Special thanks to Vladimir for the photos.