Explorer-class container ship
CMA CGM Christophe Colomb, the first Explorer-class container ship ordered by CMA CGM | |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Builders | Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) and Samsung Heavy Industries, South Korea; Shanghai Jiangnan Changxing Heavy Industry, China |
| Operators | CMA CGM |
| Built | 2009– |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Container ship |
| Tonnage | 153,000–175,000 GT |
| Length | 365–396 m (1,197 ft 6 in – 1,299 ft 3 in) |
| Beam | 51 m (167 ft 4 in) |
| Draft | 16 m (52 ft 6 in) |
| Installed power | Wärtsilä 14RT-flex96C (80,080 kW) |
| Propulsion | Single shaft; fixed-pitch propeller |
| Speed | 24–25 knots (44–46 km/h; 28–29 mph) |
| Capacity | 13,300–16,020 TEU |
The Explorer class is a series of large container ships built for CMA CGM. The first five ships are 365 metres (1,197 ft 6 in) long with a nominal capacity of 13,830 TEU; the last three are larger, at 396 metres (1,299 ft 3 in) and 16,020 TEU, making them the world's largest container ships until the delivery of the Triple E class. Advanced simulators were built to help crews learn how to handle the new ships.
The ships are mostly named after explorers. Benjamin Franklin was not an explorer but made contributions to oceanography, Georg Forster was a naturalist and ethnologist who travelled with explorer James Cook, and Jules Verne was a novelist who wrote about explorations.