large r freighters were built, such as the thirty-five C-4 Ma riner class in rhe early 1950s, bur they were not the soluti on. What was needed was an entirely new way to move ca rgo, not just bigger freigh rers. In 195 5, a Norrh Carolina trucking entrepreneur, Malcolm McLean, acquired the Pan -American Steamship Company o ut of Mobile, Alabam a, a subsidiary of Waterman Steamship. Using a concept developed by Seatrain Lines in the 1930s, he initi ally favored th e construction of 'rrailerships'-raking trailers fro m large trucks and stowing them in a ship's cargo hold . TI1is method of stowage, referred to as roll-on/ roll-off, was no t adopted because of the large waste in potential cargo space onboard the vessel, known as broken stowage. Instead, he modified his original co ncepr into loading just the containers, not the chassis, onto the ships, hence the designatio n containership, o r "box" ship. In January 1956, he purchased three T-2 tankers and oversaw the construction of wooden shelter decks, known as Mechano decking. This was a co mmon practice in Wo rld War II for the carriage of oversized cargo, such as aircraft. TI1e first ship with containers, SS Ideal X sailed from Port Newark, New Jersey, for Houston, Texas, on 26 April 1956 and opened a new age in cargo transportation.
Malcolm McLean (1914-2001) In 1955 McLean sold his trucking company and, with the proceeds, purchased the Pan-American Steamship Company. H e renamed the company Sea-Land and started experimenting with better wa)'S to load cargo. In 1956, he sent Sea-Land's SS Ideal X, which he had adapted to handle trailers (n ot just the container but the whole trailer) ftom Port Newark, NJ, down the coast and around to H ouston, the first ''container" shipment ever made.
SS IdealX
forty-foot equivalent unit (FEU = 40' x 8' x 8.5'). A m ajor technological improvement in the transportatio n of com ainers came with the introduction of cellular construction. The installation of vertical rails in the holds of ships, known as cell guides, in conjunction with high-speed shore cranes, made container handling quicker and more effici ent. Yet, the transition to containerships did nor always proceed smoothly. G race Lines suffered a severe setback in their trade with the west coast of South America by introdu cing containers befo re the market could sustain them. In addition , they in curred the wrath of local Shipping firms were slow to embrace McLean's concept. Th e conve rsion of existing ships provided the first ge nera- labor when stevedores and lo ngsho remen refused to m ove the tion in containers hips. Many of these vessels, such as the C-3 containers for fear of losing their jobs. M any companies also freighters altered by Marson Lines in the Pacific, m erely added faced the challenge of vessel replacement. As their war-built fleets lashings on deck for th e securing of containers. The existing we re nearing the end of their service lives, many firm s had to booms served as the means to load and unload the boxes. Yer, choose what type of ships to build . Som e companies went with the add ition of co ntainers did not solve the problem of cargo larger freighters, som e went with barge carrying vessels, others throughput. A lack of standardization in contai ner length and with roll-on/ roll-off ships. Even co ntainerships did not prove to be the right choice initially. In 1960, height persisted and fo rced dedicaLoading a container on the deck ofSS Ideal X Am erican President Lines constructed service between trucking firms ted two ships that represented a and shippers, precluding the 'i ntrotran sition point from break-bulk duction of rrue intermodalism-the stick freighters to truecontainerships. seamless movement of cargo from The Seamcers provided for a mix of shore to ship to shore. McLean's co ntainer transport and break-bulk new company, Sea-Land, based on cargo. The two conflicting systems the East Coast, preferred rhirty-fiveof cargo rransporration proved foot long co ntainers, while Marson inefficient and incompatible, but, on the West Coast used twen tynevertheless, symbolic of the crossfo ur-foorers. No t until 1961 did the roads that the shipping industry International Standards Committee faced in terms of technology. set up formal sizes: the twenty-foot It was the Vietnam War that deequivalent unit (TEU = 20' length monstrated the true value of the x 8' width x 8.5 ' height) and the ..-: f
SEA HISTORY 114, SPRING 2006
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