"Made in Hubei", the most advanced container ship with the largest loading capacity in China’s inland river has successfully completed its trial voyage

On the morning of December 8, "Han Hai 5 Hao", a demonstration container ship built by Hubei province, was launched and successfully completed its trial voyage, marking that the most advanced container ship built by Hubei Province with the largest load capacity in the China’s inland river will soon be put into service.

"Han Hai 5 Hao" was researched and developed by Professor Wu Weiguo of Wuhan University of Technology, invested by Wuhan Port and Shipping Development Group and its subsidiary Central China Logistics Corporations, designed by Wuhan University of Technology Ship CO., LTD and built by Ezhou Guangda Linjiang Shipyard Co., LTD. The ship has a total length of 139.8 meters and a width of 26 meters.Its draft is 6.9 meters, with a maximum deadweight of 14,200 tons. It can carry 1,140 standard containers.

It is reported that China is building a project to dredge the 6-meter deep-water channel from Wuhan to Anqing. Before the channel improvement, there were more than 200,000 transport ships in the Yangtze River Valley. The ships, with disordered types, small scale, big pollution and high energy consumption, caused many accidents and crowded the channels and the shorelines.

Wuhan New Port Administration Committee proposed to seize the opportunity of "645" governance, take Wuhan as the node and build large-scale, energy-saving and environment-friendly model container ships in the upper and lower reaches of the Yangtze River to optimize the shipping structure of the Yangtze River and reform the supply side of shipping capacity. After repeated selections, the 1140 designed by Wu Weiguo, chief professor of Wuhan University of Technology, was finally selected as the model ship.

On October 26, 2016, Wuhan New Port Administration Committee signed an agreement with several well-known enterprises, including Cosco Shipping, China Yangtze Shipping Group Co.,LTD, Zhonggu Shipping and Wuhan University of Technology Ship CO., LTD, to jointly build five model container ships of 1140 TEU from Wuhan city to Yanshan Port, Shanghai.

The 1140-TEU model ships, like the Renaissance high-speed rail on the Yangtze River, has a maximum deadweight of about 16,800 tons and can carry 1,140 standard containers. Compared with the current main ship types, the new ship doubled in its packing volume with energy-saving ability and great performance. It can be called the new "aircraft carrier" on the Yangtze River.

In 2018, Wuhan New Port Administration Committee officially launched the construction of five 1140-TEU model container ships. That year the five vessels were all inaugurated. So far, four of them have been put into service.