Giant ship could boost Irish fortunes

MALACCA MAX is not a James Bond villain. It is the codename for a 370,000-ton container ship, far bigger than the current Suez Max and Panamax giants, and it might help Ireland out of our present mess.

This gigantic vessel is designed to squeeze through the Straits of Malacca, the “pinch point” of access to Singapore, now the world’s busiest port. No such ship has yet been built, and some experts argued it would never happen. However, there were reports in December 2010 that the Danish freight line Maersk plans to order 10 of them from the Korean shipyard Daewoo.

Capable of carrying 18,000 containers, these ships will be huge, both above and below the waterline. If built to the full 21-metre depth of the Malacca Straits, these monsters will need 70 feet of water at low tide. A handful of deep harbours around the world will be used as “hubs“, with smaller ships distributing goods to feeder ports. Few Western ports could take the Malacca Max. New York is being dredged to 15 metres, also the depth of the UK’s largest container port, Felixstowe. Antwerp is around 17 metres and Hamburg under 15. Currently, only one EU port, Rotterdam, is deep enough for the Malacca Max.

In a futuristic document in 2004, the Irish Academy of Engineering suggested a Malacca Max Europort on the Shannon, to serve as a cargo hub for the entire EU. The idea was also backed by Chambers Ireland. It is surely time to look at this scheme. Ireland has some of the best deep-ocean access on Europe’s Atlantic seaboard. Both the Shannon estuary and Bantry Bay provide the necessary anchorage and sheltered turning space. North Kerry, unlike west Cork, has the flat land needed for major port facilities, and Shannon airport would help create a major EU communications centre. A fully-loaded Malacca Max can fill a goods train over 100 kilometres in length, so onward shipment of goods would probably involve other south-coast ports from Ringaskiddy to Rosslare, requiring new rail and motorway links across Munster. Even in good times, we could not pay for such a programme ourselves. It would have to be a European project.

Nobody here and hardly anybody across Europe seems aware that the Malacca Max may be coming our way, even though it will have a technological impact like the railway engine in the 19th century and the jumbo jet in the 20th. As the Asian economies lead the world out of recession, they may treat Europe as a backwater. If we do not take action, we could find our trade funnelled through the Canadian deep-water port of Halifax. Ireland is in crisis because we had politicians who failed to look ahead. Let’s not miss the opportunity that may soon be sailing towards us across the oceans.

Professor Ged Martin

Youghal

Co Cork