The German-built Rena is the largest ship ever wrecked in New Zealand waters. No lives were lost, but in financial terms it was our costliest-ever shipwreck.
Container Shipping
Events In History
Articles
Container shipping
Forty-five years ago, on 19 June 1971, the first all-container ship to visit New Zealand arrived in Wellington. Columbus New Zealand was part of a worldwide revolution in shipping. These simple steel boxes would change our transport industry, our ports and how we work and shop. Read the full article
Page 1 - Container shipping
Forty-five years ago, on 19 June 1971, the first all-container ship to visit New Zealand arrived in Wellington. Columbus New Zealand was part of a worldwide revolution in
Page 2 - The container is born
A US trucker’s ‘out of the box’ solution led to the container shipping system we know
Page 3 - Transforming shipping
By the late 1960s, the valuable Atlantic trade was being containerised. New Zealand ports followed developments closely, since some ports were expected to lose much of their
Page 4 - Transforming our ports
Containerisation changed the very look of our ports. In the 1970s the four cellular container ports – Auckland, Wellington, Lyttelton and Port Chalmers – reclaimed land, filled in
Page 5 - Transforming our economy
Containers changed everything. Railways ordered fleets of flat-deck rolling stock and ‘daylighted’ tiny Victorian tunnels so they could get through. Truckers bought heavy-duty
Page 6 - Afterlife of shipping containers
Most containers pass into the hands of a new industry that has arisen to modify them for other uses, or sell or lease them. The term ‘container architecture’ was coined to cover
Page 7 - The wreck of the Rena
On 5 October 2011 the MSC-chartered, Liberian-flagged container ship Rena astonished local mariners by grounding on the clearly marked Astrolabe Reef off Tauranga. Three months
Page 8 - Further information
Links and books related to container
Main image: Shipping container house, Wellington
Three-storey shipping container house at 173 Happy Valley Rd, Wellington
