The encyclopedia · Engineering & Operations · Technical decision · 1956–1960
Matson containerized the Hawaii trade in 1958, ship and shore as one system
On August 31, 1958 Matson's Hawaiian Merchant left San Francisco with 20 containers on deck; two years later its ships were all-container in the Pacific.
Matson Navigation Company
the move
Matson, founded in 1882 to carry goods between the U.S. Pacific Coast and Hawaii, found that moving cargo the few feet between ship and pier accounted for almost half of its transportation costs.
In 1956 it created the industry's first in-house research department; on August 31, 1958 the S.S. Hawaiian Merchant left San Francisco Bay with 20 24-foot containers on deck, and within two years the Hawaiian Citizen, carrying 436 containers in the hold, became the first all-container ship in Pacific service.
Matson pushed the shore side too: the world's first A-frame gantry crane went up in Alameda, California in 1959, and Paceco's first transtainer and Clark Ross's first straddle carrier were both built to Matson specifications.
Its 24-foot container size lost to the 20/40-foot standard that later prevailed, but the system approach — designing box, ship, crane and yard together — became the template for the container era.
why it works
- Hawaii's two-way, high-value freight justified the investment.
- Standardized boxes cut loading time, labour and damage.
- New cranes and yard machines removed the port bottleneck.
- Research-first design treated ship and shore as one system.
what transfers
A container only pays off when the whole chain is redesigned together; the box, the ship, the crane and the yard must be specified as one system.
what came after
Matson's container program became the Pacific template; in 1970 it launched purpose-built ships carrying more than 1,000 containers each, and the company still runs the U.S.–Hawaii trade today. Two of its executives (Pfeiffer 1980, Cox 2012) won the industry's Connie Award for the work.
references
- Smithsonian National Museum of American History — Transforming the Waterfront: Matson first container ship August 1958; Hawaiian Citizen first all-container ship in Pacific service
- Journal of Commerce — Matthew J. Cox To Be Presented with Connie Award: August 31, 1958 voyage, in-house research department 1956, first A-frame gantry crane 1959
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