Emma Mærsk
Maersk · In service
Full specification →Length and profile height are drawn to true scale from the sourced figures on each ship page. Compare any other ships in the live tool →
The numbers
Side by side
| Emma Mærsk | MSC Irina | Difference | Bigger | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Operator | Maersk | MSC | ||
| Length overall | 397.71 m | 399.90 m | 2.19 m | MSC Irina +1% |
| Beam | 56.40 m | 61.30 m | 4.90 m | MSC Irina +9% |
| Draft | 15.50 m | 16.50 m | 1 m | MSC Irina +6% |
| Capacity | 15,500 TEU | 24,346 TEU | 8,846 TEU | MSC Irina +57% |
| Speed | 25 kn | 22 kn | 3 kn | Emma Mærsk +14% |
The verdict
Which is actually bigger?
Seventeen years between them, two metres of length — and roughly 9,000 more TEU on Irina. The container revolution's second act happened almost entirely inside the same hull dimensions.
The MSC Irina is the longer of the two, at 399.90 m against 397.71 m — a difference of 2.19 m. She is also the wider ship, by 4.90 m of beam, so she is the bigger vessel on both hull dimensions.
Emma Mærsk redefined what a container ship could be in 2006 — so much bigger than anything before her that the industry argued for years about how many boxes she actually carried. MSC Irina holds the record every container line has chased for twenty years: the highest nominal capacity ever put on one hull, 24,346 TEU. The silhouettes above are drawn at true relative scale from the sourced figures on each ship's page — same metres, same pixels, no artistic licence.
On capacity, the MSC Irina carries more — 24,346 TEU against 15,500.
MSC Irina
MSC · In service
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