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Story: Shipping

The changing size of ships, 1874–1978

The changing size of ships, 1874–1978

The advent of containers in the 1970s brought quicker loading, and larger ships. This diagram shows the quadrupling in tonnage from a typical freighter in the years after the Second World War ended in 1945, to the containerised Mairangi Bay of 1978. The comparison with a sailing vessel 100 years before is even more striking.

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Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

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How to cite this page

Gavin McLean, Shipping – The container revolution, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/diagram/5777/the-changing-size-of-ships-1874-1978 (accessed 13 June 2026).

Story by Gavin McLean, published 2 March 2009, updated 1 January 2016.

Comments

Elliott
01 October 2011
Note that the ships in this diagram ("The changing size of ships, 1874–1978") are not to scale. The Mairangi Bay, at 248m (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Mairangi_Bay) is almost 3.5 times the length of SV Oamaru (http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=18817) but on the diagram the Mairangi Bay is only about 2.5 times the length.