Having been constructed and christened at the Danish shipyard of Odense, the Marit Maersk, a giant container ship built for the MAERSK LINE shipping company, called at the Port of Hamburg for the first time on its maiden voyage. The ship's length of 367 meters makes it 15 meters longer than any container ship that has ever called at the Port of Hamburg in the past. Ships with a slot capacity of up to 11,000 TEU (20 foot standard containers) are increasingly being put into service in international shipping, and increasing numbers of them are also coming to Hamburg. The Marit Maersk was handled at the Eurogate Container Terminal Hamburg (CTH).

The Marit Maersk is 42.80 meters wide, and according to data issued by the shipping company has a load capacity of 7,000 TEU, as well as 544 connections for refrigerated containers (reefers). Published data from the shipping information service Alphaliners gives the ship's load carrying capacity as 110,000 tons and its maximum draught as 15.5 meters. Alphaliners also states that the Marit Maersk is fitted with a main engine made by Wärtsilä-Sulzer which has an output of 68,640 kilowatts and permits a service speed of 24 knots. Based on Alphaliners' calculations, its container slot capacity amounts to approximately 10,000 TEU.

The Marit Maersk visited the Port of Hamburg on the occasion of a one-off transfer trip in the Maersk shipping company's AE-1 service between Europe and the Far East. The ship proceeds from Hamburg by way of the Suez Canal to Southeast Asia. It is expected to arrive in Singapore on March 9. After that, the bright blue juggernaut will continue its operations in the trans-Pacific service between Asia and North America.