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Port of Boston Welcomes its Largest Boxship Ever

Massport
Ever Fortune calls at Conley Terminal, January 16 (Massport)

Published Jan 16, 2022 6:39 PM by The Maritime Executive

On Sunday, the Port of Boston welcomed the largest container ship it has hosted to date, the 12,000 TEU Ever Fortune. 

It is Boston's first neo-Panamax, and its arrival was made possible thanks to an $850 million investent in the port's harbor and container terminal. The infrastructure program built a new deep-water berth with three new STS cranes, accompanied by a dredging project to deepen the approach channel to 47 feet. The project's completion means that Boston's Conley Terminal can now handle vessels up to 14,000 TEU in size. 

“We are excited to welcome this new class of container ship to Boston,” said Massport Port Director Mike Meyran. “Our infrastructure now opens new opportunities for our customers to ship more products and make global connections that were previously not possible.”

Ever Fortune is on a service rotation connecting Boston with East Asia via the New Panama Canal. The advent of the larger set of canal locks has forced competitive container ports on the U.S. East Coast to upsize their infrastructure to accommodate the new neo-Panamax class, and collectively, these ports have spent billions to facilitate the arrival of larger, more efficient ships. 

Bigger ships and upgraded port infrastructure give East Coast ports more capacity to compete with their larger West Coast brethren, and they are capturing a larger share of America's containerized imports than ever before. In October 2021, the biggest East Coast and Gulf Coast ports outpaced the biggest West Coast ports for share of import volume, according to Blue Alpha Capital - reversing longtime trade patterns.

"Those big ships will bring more space . . . and they'll help the 2,500 businesses in New England that use the Port of Boston to service their business," Meyran told NBC Boston.