Visakhapatnam Port had a glorious day on Wednesday with the arrival of largest-ever ship at the Visakha Container Terminal (VCT).
Merchant Vessel (m.v.) Maersk Dalton, UK registered ship carrying paper bound for Nepal and steel, lead, polyester and other material for Visakhapatnam and Kolkata, harboured here from Chennai. The vessel has 292.2 metres length over all (LOA).
Deputy Chairman of Visakhapatnam Port G.V.L. Satya Kumar was present at VCT at the time of berthing. He said it was indeed heartening to see that the longest vessel record was broken by a container vessel.
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This went on to prove that containerisation in Vizag had achieved commendable strides.
Mr. Satya Kumar also expressed his wish to see the longest container vessel in the world calling at Vizag soon. Both the port authority and the VCT have the required infrastructure to achieve this feat. COO of VCT Capt. Sriram Ravi Chander said this was just beginning and going to see several higher capacity vessels in near future. Earlier, m.v. Glory Sea, which called at Visakhapatnam Port in August, 2002 was the longest vessel with an LOA of 287.06 metres. Maersk Dalton is the recent inclusion to CHX Service operated by world's top shipping line – Maersk.
The vessel has carrying capacity of 4230 TEUs making it the largest container carrying capacity vessel to call at Vizag.
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Port Deputy Conservator S. Mathur, VCT Deputy COO Sushil Mulchandani, Vice-President R. Ravi Kumar and General Manager Anil Narayanan were present.