Box Clever: A Short History of Containers Part 3
The final part of Bernard’s fascinating insight into the History of Containers.
BOX CLEVER: A SHORT HISTORY OF CONTAINERS – PART 3 By Bernard Gospel – Technical Committee Secretary TechSec@AMPS.org.uk
TAKE OFF McLean first conceived a transatlantic container route in 1961, but his staff dissuaded him, as being too early. Moore-McCormac Lines, a US subsidised shipper, opened the first container service to Europe in 1966, using available ships with mixed cargo and deck mounted containers. United States Lines, another subsidised shipper, quickly followed suit. Sea-Land, unsubsidised, came in with weekly sailings from Newark to Rotterdam and Bremerhaven, each ship carrying over 200 containers. As a US flagged shipper, Sea-Land was entitled to bid for military cargo, the US at the time had 250,000 troops in Germany, and the military were keen on containerisation. When the US military came out for
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freight bids in early 1966, Sea-Land, with its cheap container rates, under-priced every other US Shipper and won the lot. Only three lines were offering a transatlantic container service in 1966, by June 1967 it had risen to 60.Over 50,000 containers crossed the Atlantic in the second half of 1967; by now 64 container vessels were under construction. In 1968 ten containerships sailed the North Atlantic per week, carrying a total of 200,000 20 foot containers. Containers themselves were in short supply! Traffic shifted over to containers so fast, that after three years, there were only two companies operating breakbulk ships across the north Atlantic.
