Early on Saturday morning, the largest containership ever to visit North America arrived at the port of Los Angeles, marking the U.S. debut of a new breed of 'mega ships' that have until now only been seen in Asia and Europe.  The 398-meter, 18,000 TEU capacity MV CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin arrived just after 4 a.m. at APM Terminals' Pier 400 at the port of Los Angeles after sailing from China according to a gcaptain report.

The ship, owned by France's CMA CGM Group, is one of a new type of Ultra Large Container Vessels (ULCVs) being built at shipyards in Asia by some of the largest carriers to further increase capacity and efficiency on the world's busiest shipping routes. The vessels are designed to carry more than 18,000, and in some cases even 19,000 twenty-foot equivalent containers, but until now they have been deployed exclusively on Asia to N. Europe trade routes.

The company owner says the ship will be deployed on the Pearl River Express, a regular service connecting some of China's main ports, including Xiamen, Nansha and Yantian, with Los Angeles and Oakland. The vessel will call at the port of Oakland next on December 31st before heading back across the Pacific to China.

But while one may question the need for such a massive ship at a time when global trade is sliding fast, and when a third of all containers leaving the port of Long Beach are empty, what is certain is that the sheer size of the ship caused quite a stir, if not so much in the shipping world then certain online.