SS Ideal X

Side elevation of the Ideal X by Karsten Cunibert Kruger Kopiske

The Ideal X was one of the world's first container ships and heralded as a completely new type of ship the era of intermodal transport one.

History

After the transporter Malcolm McLean had sold a 75 percent stake of its forwarding for 6 million U.S. dollars in 1955, he invested this money in acquiring the shipping company Pan - Atlantic, which he later renamed SeaLand Industries. 1955/56, leaving McLean converted the first four ships to container ships, the Sea-Land T2 class, which also includes the Ideal X counted.

The T2 -SE -A1 tanker Potrero Hills was 1944/45, at the shipyard Marinship Corp.. , United States built in Sausalito as hull number 68 on behalf of the United States War Shipping Administration in San Francisco.

The ship was in 1948 in Captain John D. P. and 1951 renamed back to Potrero Hills before McLean acquired it in 1955 and baptized after conversion to the container ship Ideal X. There should be regular services between the east coast ports of the United States. The maiden voyage as a container ship took place on April 26th, 1956 rather than on the route from Newark (New Jersey) to Houston ( Texas) and was closely watched by both cargo interests as well as trade unions and government representatives. After applying in Houston the containers were loaded on trailer, embarrassing carefully inspected and removed by non- McLean trucks. After the charge was safe and dry reaches its destination, the first hurdle was taken. Still, McLean was forced to do more persuasion, which succeeded especially with cheaper freight rates and better cargo insurance rates.

In 1959 the ship was sold to a Bulgarian owners and renamed Elemir. On 8 February 1964, suffered such serious damage by wave impact, that it was sold for demolition. This began on 20 October 1964 at Hirao, Japan.

Container arrangement

The Ideal X was converted from the Baltimore Sparrows Point Shipyard of Bethlehem Steel Corporation by so-called savings decks for the transport of containers. It was a construction as was used during the war to transport bulky loads such as pre-assembled aircraft across the Atlantic. While this was from today's perspective, an ineffective design because each container still had to be individually lashed to the deck, but enough at the time of the conversion, in order to prove the general feasibility of intermodal transport as such and thus to convince especially the charterers and shippers.