Captain plays role in Silk Road success story

Ships carrying containers on key BRI route are getting bigger

Container ship captain Gu Longhua, 58, has been helming ever bigger ships along the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road in recent years as cargo shipments boom on the route, part of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Gu, a merchant seaman for 38 years, is now in charge of the MV Cosco Netherlands, a 366-meter-long container ship that can carry 13,000 twenty-foot equivalent units, the measure for standard containers.