Gusts of wind offered short-lived relief from the humid air settling on the port terminal Thursday morning. A crowd gazed at the harbor as a cargo ship passed by packed with red and bright pink shipping containers. From a distance, it resembled a floating island.
Cargo ships like this one are only getting bigger, wider and heavier. Ultra-large vessels can carry between 10,000 and 16,000 containers — also called ‘twenty-foot equivalent units.”
“That was a 12,000 TEU vessel,” Sarah McCoy, CEO of the Port of Virginia, told WHRO. “They didn’t have to worry about tide to come in. They could come in exactly when they were ready to come in.”…