Our History

In the late 1990s, Seaspan founders Gerry Wang and Graham Porter had an idea. In an age of volatile economic markets and prevalent spot chartering in the marine containership sector, they looked to a new way of doing business—a better way.

The concept was simple: build a company by forging strong business alliances with some of the world’s leading ship liner operators, and strengthen it by avoiding the short-term contracts common at the time in favour of long-term deals. This business model has allowed Seaspan to thrive in the challenging times as well as the good ones, and to ensure stability for both the company and our employees.

In the last ten years, we’ve grown from a single ship with just one charterer to more than 60 active ships chartered to eight of the world’s leading charterers, including China Shipping, COSCO, CSAV, Hapag-Lloyd, K-Line, Maersk, MOL, and UASC. By April of 2012, we will have 69 vessels in operation.

From the incorporation of Seaspan Ship Management Ltd. in April 2000, to the delivery of Seaspan’s largest ships to date—the 13100 TEU series—in 2011, we see the tremendous progress we’ve made and goals we’ve achieved. But we are not content to rest on our laurels. This is just the beginning of our success story.

Key Milestones

Our success is based on the quality of our people. Our team’s excellent ship management and strong financial acumen have enabled us to achieve significant milestones: