Extreme size: Explore a megaship in 360 degrees

we're standing on the deck of a mega ship the CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin it's the largest container ship to ever dock in the United States keep an eye on that red shipping container behind you it's about to move and it's the size of the truck it's one of 9,000 similarly sized containers at the Benjamin Franklin comparative miss symbol voyage [Music] you're standing on the dock where you can begin to get a sense of the ship's size here at the Port of Long Beach the size of the cranes limit the container stacks to eight levels above the deck but the Benjamin Franklin will eventually be able to handle loads up to ten levels high driving the length of the ship can take several minutes it's as long as four football fields and here you can see some of the giant cranes used to load cargo onto her deck here we see Vella bore care upon the ship's captain walking on the bridge somebody would say I'm the God and the father and the mother of the crew and of everybody on board there's 28 crew members there are few fellows from Croatia there are one guy from Montenegro most of them are coming from Philippines what's to come one guy from Romania so it's quite international crew here you are now standing next to the ship's giant engine and some of her crew walks past you know there are 26 different nationalities on board the background so different mentalities cultures are different and everything and but our goal our mission let's say is the same our soul our source on some way are the same because we are all the sinners so we understand each other we're standing now on the crow's nest and believe it or not we're still on board the bedroom Franklin at one of the highest points of the ship all of those containers you're looking at are above her deck and there's many more below as well from here you can see just how wide the ship is wider in fact than a 12 lane highway the images you're seeing are sped up to twice the speed of reality so you can see how the cranes unload the vessel here's captain cutter pond looking over the navigational charts he says regardless of the ship's size she can still be affected by mother nature any storm can be a little challenge the winter storms like there you have them now in the North Pacific despite the size of the vessel you always must be very very careful you know don't don't take granted the size of the vessel yeah that is going to protect you you always respect the sea keeping him cautious our memories he has from an experience earlier in his career when a ship he served on was caught in massive waves there's a huge storm in northern northern Atlantic the time and the height of the waves and the length was beyond any imagination you know so actually the wind force was nobody could measure so maybe even 70 80 or 100 miles you know you're just we can guess it in that moment you know only in later on I realized what we went through so and this little good was a huge experience nobody came nobody can share such experience with you you have to you have to survive it you have to leave it so here we get a wider perspective of the ships single engine which can take it across the Pacific in just two weeks and finally here we are with the containers once again and we can see how deep they go below the deck what's inside is anyone's guess a lot of the goods that come into the u.s. from Asia include textiles food and technology but the captain says he doesn't think about the financial value when he's at sea there I suppose hundreds of millions of dollars so the value of the cargo plus the shape and everything but of the very first place and this is something you have anybody you know who is in command Tomas curve it's a human beings so it's it's a human life from the very first place don't think about the financial responsibilities responsibilities it's beyond your you know what you can do also for the first you can if you are trying and you're doing everything to to to keep to save the human lives yes of course you're going to save that the cargo and the ship

Channel: USA TODAY

Views: 51,149

Rating: 4.6901407 out of 5

Keywords: USA TODAY, News, technology, vr, virtual reality, 360, 360 degree video, boats, engineering, extreme, megaship

Id: nyk87htqu5k

Length: 5min 28sec (328 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 03 2016