20th century milestones like the advent of the container in the 1950s and APL's own pioneering efforts with intermodalism in the mid-1980s have revolutionized the centuries-old business of transporting goods to market. Yet, the workhorse of the industry - the ship itself - hadn't changed much until APL took a groundbreaking approach to vessel construction in 1988.

Since the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, virtually all ships have been constructed to fit within its locks. Conventional wisdom favored flexibility, so ships were never more than 91 feet wide or 1.000 feet long. And because these "Panamax" ships could transit the canal, they could be deployed in either the Atlantic or Pacific as market conditions changed.

The C-10 Class Vessel Truman Click on image for vessel information.

APL challenged this way of thinking in 1988 when it commissioned the first "post-Panamax" ships, the C-10s. Experts scoffed at spending $100 million to build a ship incapable of transiting the canal, but the wisdom of the new design soon became evident.

In addition to being technological marvels with the latest in satellite navigation and safety features, the new ships can carry up to 30 percent more cargo than their predecessors, have a range of over 20,000 nautical miles, and can reach speeds of nearly 25 knots. And because intermodalism in North America meant that goods could be transported from East Coast to West Coast more effectively by train, it made sense to build ships that were committed to trans-Pacific trade.

In terms of scale, imagine a ship just over three football fields long that carries more than 2,400 forty-foot containers - that's 2.4 million cases of bananas, or 4 million boxes of shoes, or 60 million blouses.

	The President Truman, a C-10 vessel, outside the Golden Gate bridge.

In contrast to the California, the first steamer of APL's earliest predecessor, the company's newest ships are a study in efficiency. 36 sailors were required to man the California, a 200-foot-long brigantine. The President Truman, a C-10 which is over 900 feet long, operates with a crew of just 21.

So successful was the new design that soon after the first C-10 was launched, plans for the next generation of ships were made. By the time the C-11s debuted in 1995, most major carriers were converting their fleets to post-Panamax vessels. A fitting testament to the founders of what is now APL, these new ships are just the latest chapter in a history of innovation that spans a century and a half.