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A terrible downturn in global trade has left consignors with idle capacity, billions in losses, and even facing possible bankruptcy

The Andromeda towers almost 40 meters (131 feet) above Hamburg’s Burchard wharf , as countless feeder boats and container stacking vehicles bustle around it like insects around a bored elephant. Shipyard CMA CGN’s new flagship vessel ship , one of the world’s largest, boasts a 100,000 horsepower engine, can carry 11,400 containers , is 363 meters long and was came from South Korea only a few months ago—at a cost of $160 million (€111 million).

The Andromeda was built for an economic boom that never seemed to end, at a time when more and more receptacles , bigger ships and ever-growing port installations were needed.

With each flying minute, lift bridges lift containers from the quay wall onto the deck of the 100,000-ton behemoth. When fully burdened , the vessel has space for holders arranged up to 18 wide, 86 long and 19 tall. In the end, the Andromeda is loaded to about two-thirds capacity. “That’s not bad,” says Captain Ivan Bozanic. “At least nowadays .”

The further day, the CMA flagship leaves Hamburg for China, the item of origin of its 68-day round-trip travelling . The Andromeda passes exclusively between East Asia and northern Europe, a speedway of global occupation . It unchangeably shuttles TV sets, mobile phones, T-shirts, and everything else China’s factories are churning out, toward the West, and returns to the East carrying a load with finished parts, machines and empty containers.

Until recently , navigation was both the greatest beneficiary and constructing pulse of globalization, moving goods around the world at an ever- growing pace. The industry has been increasing quickly from year to year, ever since China became the world’s factory . In 2008, roughly 500 million standard holders (TEU) were transported on the world’s oceans—twice as many as at the turn of the millennium.

Year after year, new and ever more massive ships were built, ports were expanded and new scheduled service introduced. The load capacity of the world’s combined container fleet grew from 4 million TEUs in 2000 to 12.5 million today.

Many became rich in the years of the hum , comprising ship masters , bankers and investors, especially in Hamburg. In the last term , the northern German port city became the world’s main heart for the financing and operation of new vessels . Germans own 35 percent of the container ships in operation worldwide, and close to 60 shipping banks and financiers are headquartered in Hamburg. Hamburg-based Hapag-Lloyd became one of the world’s chief shipping line owners .

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