The Maersk Triple-E is the largest cargo ship in the world. Photographer Alastair Philip Wiper got the chance to visit Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, the South Korean port where nine of these behemoths are currently being build. These are his amazing photos, originally published on Wired.
As commissioned by Danish shipping company Maersk lines, a total of 20 of these ships will be made by 2015 in Okpo, South Korea. But that’s not the only floating giant under construction at the shipping yard — in fact, 46,000 people are working on 100 ships right now, which, per Wiper, is an incredible sight to behold! He writes on his blog:
The Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) shipyard in South Korea is the second largest shipbuilder in the world and one of the “Big Three” shipyards of South Korea, along with the Hyundai and Samsung shipyards. The shipyard, about an hour from Busan in the south of the country, employs about 46,000 people, and could reasonably be described as the worlds biggest Legoland. Smiling workers cycle around the huge shipyard as massive, abstractly over proportioned chunks of ships are craned around and set into place: the Triple E is just one small part of the output of the shipyard, as around 100 other vessels including oil rigs are in various stages of completion at the any time.
It must have been amazing to see in person. It must have been even more amazing to wander around the 18,000 container-capacity ship, which is exactly what Wiper was given permission to do. Check out some of the pics below, or over on Wiper’s blog. I feel small. [Alastair Philip Wiper for Wired h/t Gizmodo Es]