Maersk Container ship - Why 840 feet long>

[FiatLux]

This is my first posting here. Last month as I cruised past the Balboa container cranes at the west end of the Panama Canal, I spotted a Maersk Neo-Panamax container ship immediately in front of a smaller Maersk container ship. Assuming the big one was 1200 feet long, the little one was 840 feet long (256 meters). Too short for Panamax and too long for the St Lawrence Seaway.  Why would Maersk have a ship of that size?
FiatLux

[MO Roy]

Hi FiatLux,
Containerships come in all kind of sizes, i.e. different length combined with different width, depending on the capacity.
In general you don't want a big(ger) containership on a trade where you cannot fill it, close, to the maximum capacity.
St Lawrence Seaway is not really a denominator for container ships. Panamax, Bosporus max, Bangkok max and Chittagong max (to name a few) are well known limiters for container ships.
Modern trend is that for a same size containership, capacity-wise, they are getting shorter and wider.
The benefit of this is a bigger hull-stability so that you can stack containers higher on deck and thus get a certain capacity with a smaller foot-print.
Cheers,
Roy

[etomermaet]

That's really cool. Compared to long ships, I prefer shorter and wider ships. They seem sturdier and more stable than older designs and have a lower chance of tipping over