Port welcomes its biggest carrier ever

If ever there were reason for spending at least $10 million a year pulling pluff mud out of Charleston Harbor, it sailed into port Thursday morning.

Mediterranean Shipping Co.'s MSC Rita, the largest container carrier ever to call at the Port of Charleston, docked at the Wando Welch Terminal just before dawn. Measuring 1,063 long and with a breadth of 141 feet, the Rita brings with it a nearly 48-foot draft when fully loaded with cargo boxes.

That's significant as the shipping industry moves toward colossal vessels in anticipation of the expanded Panama Canal's reopening in 2014. The Rita demonstrated that Charleston Harbor, at its current depth, can accommodate the bigger ships now.

The ship can transport the equivalent of about 8,100 20-foot-long shipping containers but still navigate the harbor without restriction and allow for two-way traffic. With no more than a few feet of leeway between the ship's belly and the channel bottom, the harbor pilots guided in the Rita at high tide -- very carefully.

While port proponents often boast about Charleston's 45-foot "naturally deep harbor" at low tide, Army Corps of Engineers project manager Joe Wilson knows that's sense of false bravado.

"That's a misnomer," Wilson said. "There is no natural depth. If we quit dredging, it would probably be the low 20s."

The Rita's arrival comes thanks to the Army Corps of Engineers' annual removal of 2 million to 3 million cubic yards of material. One million cubic yards would fill a football field and stack 39 stories high, according to Wilson.

The corps spends $10 million to $15 million each year maintaining the depth with a full-time, 12-person team of engineers, technicians and survey personnel. It recently undertook a $90,000 federally funded study to consider further deepening and could launch a five- to seven-year feasibility study if the first proves promising.

For now Wilson said his crew is proud to be a part of the team bringing in the Rita, using sonar to produce images of the channel bottom and making sure the ship won't suck mud into its systems as it floats just a few feet above. "We've been doing this 130 years, so we've got a good idea of what's going on," Wilson said.

A crane unloaded colorful containers stacked high on the Rita

Thursday morning, as a worker in a neon-yellow vest, dwarfed by his surroundings, waved to the Army Corps of Engineers survey boat in the Wando River.

A little more than a decade ago, the SPA boasted its first visit from the Maersk Regina, which could carry about 6,000 20-foot containers. At the time, the ship was the largest container vessel ever to call on an American port.

While comparable in length to the Regina, the Rita can hold about one-third more cargo, underscoring the industry's rapid shift to increasingly larger vessels. But some of these megaships are being put into service at a time when worldwide freight volumes are sharply down. Through January, the State Ports Authority reported a 20 percent drop in container volume since its current fiscal year began July 1.

SPA chief executive Jim Newsome announced at a January business breakfast that the Rita would mark the first weekly call on MSC's Golden Gate service from Asia by way of the Suez Canal. Describing the vessel's grand entrance, he said, "This is the only port in the South Atlantic that this ship can call today."

Reach Allyson Bird at abird@postandcourier.com or 937-5594.