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July 2011www.sname.org/sname/mt BYROBERT K.C. TSENG On April 26 1956, McLeans con- verted World War Two tanker, Ideal X , made its maiden journey from Port Newark to Houston car- rying 58 metal container boxes. Ten years later, the rst converted container ship, Sea- Lands Fairland , sailed from Port Elizabeth in the U.S. to Rotterdam in the Netherlands with 236 containers. Since then, container ship investors seem to have found ship size to be a challenge. In the early 1970s, 3,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) was the deep-sea norm, but it took another 20 years to break the 4,000 TEU barrier. By 1998, ships under 4,000 TEU still had 70% of the order book, but by January 2000, the 4,000- 8,000 TEU sector had grabbed 72%. e expansion of the Panama Canal was proposed by the Panama Canal Authority and presented by Panamanian President Martín Torrijos on April 24, 2006. It was approved by Panamanian citizens in a national referendum by 76.8% of the vote on October 22, 2006. On September 3, 2007, the Panama Canal expansion project ocially started, and it will double the capacity of the Panama Canal by 2014 by enabling more and larger ships to transit. is project also made the birth of the new Panamax container car- rier of ultra-large size become a reality. Container vessel design considerations International trade, global transportation costs, and economies of scale all have con- tributed to an upward trend in the size of container ships being ordered to reduce oper- ational costs per TEU, especially in light of the cost increase of bunkers which have risen from $150 to $700 per ton over the last several years. Opinions differ on the issue of sin- gle island or twin island for new Panamax VESSEL REPORT: NEW PANAMAX CONTAINER SHIPS VESSEL REPORT