Evergreen Container Ship Makes Record Transit Through Panama Canal

The Panama Canal completed a trial transit of Evergreen’s Triton, the largest vessel in dimension and container cargo capacity to pass through the Expanded Canal on Wednesday.

The Neopanamax container ship has a total TEU Allowance (TTA) of 15,313, a 20-row beam of 51.2 meters (168 feet) and a length of 369 meters (1,211 feet), and she transited northbound from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.

The transit surpassed the 15,000-TEU vessel threshold, establishing a new record in terms of total TEU capacity and exceeding the waterway's established maximum vessel length of 366 meters (1,201 feet).

Similar to the milestone Q-Flex transit completed on May 12, the transit was made possible by an increase to the maximum allowable beam for vessels transiting the Neopanamax Locks. Beginning in June 2018, the Canal increased the allowable beam from 49 meters (161 feet) to 51.25 meters (168 feet) due to the team’s experience gained from successfully operating the Expanded Canal for almost three years.

The Triton is deployed on Evergreen’s Far East – United States East Coast (AUE) service as part of the OCEAN Alliance network, which connects Asia and U.S. East Coast ports via the Panama Canal. The AUE service is comprised of 11 vessels ranging in size from 8,000 to 14,000 TEUs. The Alliance includes China COSCO Shipping, Orient Overseas Container Lines (OOCL), CMA CGM Group and Evergreen, which are among the Panama Canal's top customers by volume.

The record for largest container ship to transit the Canal by capacity was set on August 22, 2017 by the CMA CGM Theodore Roosevelt, which measures 365.96 meters (1,201 feet) in length and 48.252 meters (158 feet) in beam and had a 14,863 TTA.

Of the 6,000 Neopanamax vessels that have transited to date, nearly 50 percent have been from the container segment.