Built for a purpose
- Builder / location
- Odense Steel Shipyard, Denmark
- Original role
- Large-scale container transport
Why it was built
Emma Maersk marked a major step in container-ship scale when it entered service in 2006. Yantian’s contemporary port report identifies it as the world’s largest container vessel at the time. The commercial logic was to move very large cargo volumes through a limited number of capable hub terminals.
An important incident in its service history
On 1 February 2013, water entered the engine room near the Suez Canal. Maersk’s subsequent report described the immediate repairs and the onward journey. This is a reminder that a ship’s history includes maintenance, disruption and recovery as well as launches and size records.
Why identity matters
The name Emma Maersk has also been used for other vessels. This profile concerns the 2006 container ship, not an earlier tanker. The IMO identifier in the specification sources is the more reliable way to follow a ship through photographs, records and ownership changes. That is also why the site does not activate tracking solely from a matching name.
Historical information reviewed 9 September 2026. Documented journeys are not live vessel positions.