Alastair Philip Wiper

Opko, a port in South Korea, is home to Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, a company constructing the world’s largest model of ship – 12 at a time. “The place is mind-blowing,” says photographer Alastair Philip Wiper, who visited the shipyard for WIRED on the eve of the departure of the ninth Triple-E class container vessel, the Matz Maersk. “This is just a small part of what they’re doing. They have 46,000 people building around 100 vessels – and everywhere you look there’s some surreal part of a ship that’s just about recognisable as something that should be underwater.”

Twenty Triple-E class container ships have been commissioned by Danish shipping company Maersk Lines for delivery by 2015. The vessels will serve ports along the northern-Europe-to-Asia route, many of which have had to expand to cope with the ships’ size. “You don’t feel like you’re inside a boat, it’s more like a cathedral,” Wiper says. “Imagine this space being full of consumer goods, and think about how many there are on just one ship. Then think about how many are sailing round the world every day. It’s like trying to think about infinity.”