CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin: Floating Empire State Building

The CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin, a megaboat that is longer than the Empire State Building is tall, arrived at the Port of Los Angeles over the weekend, making it the biggest ship to ever touch U.S. shores.

The massive ship is as tall as a 20-story building and wider than a football field, said the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

The ship's amazing size allows it to carry up to 18,000 containers, according to the CMA CGM website, and is large enough to carry the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush inside. The ship's maximum load of almost 590,000 cubic meters represents the volume of 235 Olympic pools.

The CMA CGM Group is a French-based shipping company that operates in 160 countries and posted revenues of $16.9 billion in 2014. It has operated in U.S. ports since 1995.

The ship's arrival in Los Angeles was the first of several test runs on the West Coast in an attempt to determine how many ports can handle a ship the size of the Benjamin Franklin.

"The question keeps coming back on whether U.S. port infrastructure is actually ready for this size of vessels," Marc Bourdon, president of CMA CGM American operations, told the Press-Telegram. "Well, they are not exactly quite ready yet. Some ports are ready. The reality is a ship like this will not be able to get deployed on a permanent basis until more ports are ready to accommodate them."

Port of Los Angeles spokesman Phillip Sanfield said the facility had to do extra work to prepare for the ship's mammoth size, according to KPCC Public Radio.

"We've dredged our main channel and our berths, we've fortified our wharves, we've got on-dock rail so that the trains are right adjacent to the dock to take these goods to market," said Sanfield.


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