Comments on: The voyage of the Matson Maunalei

The voyage of the Matson Maunalei

cushie — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 14:54:03 -0800

Gorgeous time lapse footage of the journey of the M/V Matson Maunalei loading up in Honolulu and taking the 35 day trip to Long Beach. As you probably know, those containers on the merchant ship are filled with pallets, the single most important object in the global economy , previously. Shipping containers on Metafilter.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:01:21 -0800

Fill one container with USB drives... amazing bandwidth. Pretty terrible latency though.

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:10:17 -0800

I enjoy seeing the ship being pushed up against the wharf by unseen tugboats. At the accelerated speed, when the tugboats scamper away, they seem so impish.

By: indyz

indyz — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:14:59 -0800

There has to be a lot more going on than a straight shot from Honolulu to Long Beach. That trip should only take a week. 35 days to cover 2500 miles is barely walking speed.

By: scottatdrake

scottatdrake — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:17:26 -0800

Some pretty impressive parallel parking in there.

By: jontyjago

jontyjago — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:18:29 -0800

There has to be a lot more going on than a straight shot from Honolulu to Long Beach. I don't wish to be overly snarky but I've only watched 47 seconds of the film so far, but have already seen a caption saying Guam, so clearly there is more going on. Watching the entire 3:35 minutes will no doubt give me much more information.

By: jontyjago

jontyjago — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:21:57 -0800

OK, it didn't give me much more information! But, nice vid!

By: indyz

indyz — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 15:45:20 -0800

I watched the whole thing before I posted (I really try not to be that guy) and I noticed that there were several different ports, but somehow I completely missed every single caption. Just captivated by the time lapse, I guess. Honolulu, Guam, Xiamen, Long Beach is 13000 miles as the crow flies, which pretty well accounts for 35 days. And yes, very nice video.

By: mattoxic

mattoxic — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:16:53 -0800

Containers loading in Hawaii. What does Hawaii export? Wikipedia says food an apparel - anything else?

By: mrbill

mrbill — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:42:15 -0800

I sorta wanted the ship to drift and slide up into its berthing spot at Long Beach... but that was awesome.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 16:49:38 -0800

Containers loading in Hawaii. What does Hawaii export? Wikipedia says food an apparel - anything else? Presidents.

By: The White Hat

The White Hat — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 17:26:20 -0800

An itinerary, from here:

2012 November 5th, 03:00:56 UTCHonolulu
2012 October 28th, 18:00:40 UTCLong Beach
2012 October 16th, 23:50:42 UTCShanghai
2012 October 13th, 23:00:56 UTCXiamen
2012 October 1st, 14:00:45 UTCLong Beach
2012 October 1st, 11:00:35 UTCShanghai
2012 September 23rd, 11:00:46 UTCLong Beach
2012 September 11th, 23:00:57 UTCShanghai
2012 September 1st, 06:00:09 UTCNingbo

And from here:

Dec 13, 2012, 03:05 UTCHONOLULU  USA
Nov 20, 2012, 10:04 UTCBEILUN  China
Oct 16, 2012, 17:00 UTCBEILUN  China

More. Still more.

By: spudsilo

spudsilo — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:23:04 -0800

Hmm... something is not right about that timeline. Only 3 hours between Shanghai and Long Beach on Oct. 1st?

By: peeedro

peeedro — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:26:17 -0800

The international date line is a mysterious thing.

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 18:59:03 -0800

The international date line doesn't affect UTC, does it?

By: incandissonance

incandissonance — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:00:34 -0800

If you have 5 days available you can watch an entire an cruise along the mid-summer Norwegian coast as previously noted on MeFi.

By: Defenestrator

Defenestrator — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:23:47 -0800

I used to work in the logistics industry in the LA area (and I currently live in Long Beach) so I've learned quite a bit about the port of Long Beach/ Los Angeles. It's really one of the most fascinating yet mostly hidden parts of what makes the country tick. A few things that might be of interest that are related to this short: -The bridge that the ship goes under at about 2:47 is actually way too squat for many of the container ships these days. They're gearing up to replace it, but it's too important a bridge for it not to be there even for a short period of time. The plan is to build the replacement right next to it and then knock this old one down when they're done. -The turn that the ship begins to make at 2:50 is supposedly really tricky, but a single family owned business of harbor pilots pulls it off flawlessly over a dozen times a day. -The port, despite being one of the largest and most important in the world, is not naturally in a very good location with regard to being protected from strong wave action. It is instead protected by one of the largest man-made breakwaters in the world. -While the breakwater directly in front of the port (the "middle" breakwater) is very important, most of the city of Long Beach is united in getting rid of or modifying the Long Beach breakwater, which was built in WWII by the federal government and then left when the naval base closed. Funding is a big issue (the federal government should really be pitching in), in addition to worries about risks to houses that were built in areas that would normally be highly likely to get washed out to sea during a big storm if wave action wasn't impeded like it is now.

By: sammyo

sammyo — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 19:49:20 -0800

Harbor pilot is a pretty good gig, tough hours and it's gotta be scary in rough weather to climb up a ladder out in the ocean, but the small group of pilots basically split the fees and for a busy port that can be very lucrative. Very.

By: Brocktoon

Brocktoon — Thu, 13 Dec 2012 20:53:27 -0800

Can you even do a straight shot from Honolulu to Long Beach? Something to do with the currents...

By: IAmBroom

IAmBroom — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 11:00:26 -0800

For all your pallet-stacking obsession needs...