Massive ship docks in Savannah. There’s another chance to see it as it departs today

Update as of 8:45 a.m. May 27: The CMA CGM Marco Polo is scheduled to depart from the Port of Savannah at 6 p.m. on Thursday, according to a Georgia Ports Authority spokesperson.

The Savannah River was crowded Wednesday — on both Hutchinson Island and Savannah’s historic riverfront — for the arrival of the largest container ship ever to come to the Port of Savannah:

The Marco Polo.

Whether the crowds were because of the CMA CGM Group’s Instagram photo contest or the sheer size of the colossal ship — 175 feet wide and 1,300 feet long — was difficult to tell.

Drones were flying, people were sticking their heads out riverfront windows, others were on hotel balconies, and cars were stopped on the Talmadge Bridge to get a bird’s eye view.

The Marco Polo, expected to arrive at 8:30 a.m., actually made the turn at 9:02 a.m. and took about 20 minutes to get through the Savannah River channel. It was carrying 16,000 containers of clothing, pharmaceuticals, furniture, appliances, holiday decorations, building materials, home fixtures and food, CMA CGM said.

Besides breaking the record for the largest container ship to call at the Port of Savannah, the ship has surpassed records at every stop.

It arrived in Nova Scotia on May 17, and three days later in New York and New Jersey, basically breaking “big-ship” records at seven North American ports in 11 days, according to the company’s website.

Its next port of call will be Charleston on Friday.

About that photo contest...

The company is holding a photo contest to commemorate its record-breaking journey. Three winners at each port city will be selected to tour the Marco Polo during its next call to Savannah and Charleston.

If the winners happen to be three tourists, the awards might be enough of a draw to get them to return to the Lowcountry.

To enter, photographers should post photos of the ship on Instagram tagging @CMACGM and using one of the following hashtags:

• #CMACGMRecord
• #CMACGMMarcoPolo
• #CCMarcoPoloSavannah
• #CCMarcoPoloCharleston

Full contest rules can be found on the CMA CGM website: cmacgm-group.com.

This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 2:05 PM.