The first carrier with fully containerized ships, Pan-Atlantic, used containers that were 35 feet long, because that was the maximum allowed on the highways leading to its home base in New Jersey. A 35-foot container would have been inefficient for carrying canned pineapple, Matson Navigation’s biggest single cargo, because a fully loaded container would have been too heavy for a crane to lift; Matson’s careful studies showed that a 24-foot box was best for its particular mix of traffic. Grace
