First Containership, Ideal-X, 1956

On April 26th 1956, the Ideal-X left the Port of Newark, New Jersey to the Port Houston, Texas, which it called 5 days later. It carried 58 35-feet containers, along with a regular load of liquid cargo. This ship was converted under the initiative of Malcom McLean (1914-2001), a trucking magnate who saw the tremendous potential of containerization, particularly in terms of loading and unloading costs. McLean calculated that in 1956 loading a medium-sized ship the conventional way cost $5.83 a ton. Comparatively, loading the Ideal-X cost less than $0.16 a ton. The economic advantages of such a mode of transportation thus became clear to the shipping industry. In 1960, McLean founded SeaLand, a major container shipping line, which was purchased in 1999 by Maersk, the world's largest container shipping company. The Ideal X carried containers until 1965, when it was scrapped.