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18,000-TEU CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin tests docking in Port of Long Beach

THE 18,000-TEU CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin, the biggest ship to call at US ports, has now called on Long Beach as part of a series of trials to prepare American ports for mega ships.

Hitherto, it has been conventional wisdom that megaships would be relegated to Asia-Europe trade lanes because American ports did not have the deep water to accommodate them.

But after successful calls at Los Angeles, Oakland and now the Port of Long Beach, its looks as if the credibility of that assumption has been challenged.

French shipping giant CMA CGM believes the future of American ports lies in the ability to handle such vessels, said a company statement.

"As a pioneer, the CMA CGM Group worked with all stakeholders - Dockers, harbour pilots, intermodal companies, port authorities, city officials - to help terminals host these vessels and to guarantee optimised performance without generating congestion," said the statement.

CMA CGM founder Jacques Saade, 78, first encountered the container during a New York internship in the 1960s when he saw the US Army using containers to supply troops in Vietnam.

Anticipating the revolution this mode of transport would bring, Mr Saade created CMA (Compagnie Maritime d'Affretement) in 1978 as an intra-Mediterranean service based in Marseilles. In 1996, CMA took over the former state-owned CGM (Compagnie Generale Maritime) when it was privatised.

In 1997, he opened the first CMA CGM office in the United States. In 2007, he acquired US Lines, an American company offering regular weekly services on the transpacific and Australasian trades from the United States.