“A floating vessel that is longer than the Empire State Building is high has taken to the water for the first time.  Despite appearances, Prelude cannot strictly be described as a ship as it needs to be towed to its destination rather than travelling under its own power.”

Seth Dixon‘s insight:

This is a floating testament that economies of scale will continue to push the limits.  Today, the largest of the massive cargo ships are simply too big to get through the Panama Canal and have to travel down around the tip of South America.  This is one reason why Nicaragua is planning to construct a canal to rival Panama’s (Maps 101 readers can read more about the geographic implications of Nicaragua’s plans in this article co-authored by myself and Julie Dixon or you can sign up for a free trial subscription to see what Maps 101 has to offer). 

Tags: transportation, Nicaragua, globalization, diffusion, industry, economic.

See on www.bbc.co.uk