It was a special occasion for the port last Friday with two record holders in port together.
On Thursday port records were established with the arrival of Maersk Detroit.
This chartered vessel is the largest container ship to visit New Zealand in terms of size and capacity.
It is also the largest German flag ship to call here, and by a small margin, is now the longest visitor to this harbour.
It was joined on the following day by the five-year old cruise ship Diamond Princess on its 16th visit.
With its sister ship Sapphire Princess, these 290m-long vessels, both of 115,875 gt, are the port's largest visitors.
The Panamax-type Maersk Detroit is classed with Germanischer Lloyd, the Hamburg-based classification society.
They record the vessel as having a gross tonnage of 54,771, an overall length including bulbous bow of 294.14m and a total container capacity of 5018TEU, including 1100 reefer plugs.
Before last Thursday, and as far as local records go, the largest container ship was the 53.790gt Portland Bay which berthed on October 19, 1983.
And on November 7, 2008, the 294.00m-long cruise ship Millennium snatched the longest visitor record from the 293.53m-long Queen Elizabeth 2.
With regards to the number of containers it can carry, last week's visitor has 23% more capacity than the seven Offen-owned, Samsung-built, Albatross class 4112TEU vessels that started calling here in February, 2002.
The ship is one of eight "Santa P" class vessels owned by Reederei Claus-Peter Offen of Hamburg that are all on charter to the Maersk Line.
All are owned by one-ship companies that include their build names in the titles, with ownership of the recent visitor being recorded as Zweite MS "Santa Pelagia" Offen Reederei GmbH.
They represent a standard design completed for various owners from 2002-05 at the Ulsan shipyard of Hyundai Heavy Industries.
From 2004 production was switched to Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries yard, Samho.
While six of the Offen ships were built at Ulsan, Maersk Detroit was the first of a pair ordered from Samho.
Keel-laying to completion was accomplished in just over four months in 2005.
It was laid down on February 21, launched on May 6, and delivered on June 28.
The vessel has a deadweight capacity of 66,281 tonnes and loaded draught of 13.650m.
A nine-cylinder Sulzer diesel rated at 51,480 kW (69,992bhp) gives a service speed of 25 knots.
Four of the Ulsan-built sextet went into service with the P&O Nedlloyd fleet.
One of them named P&O Nedlloyd Detroit was later renamed Maersk Dunedin.
Last week's record-breaker replaces the regular visitor, Maersk Duffield, which suffered a fire in the engine room as it was approaching Brisbane on December 10.
A month earlier, in the Torres Strait, a Queensland paramedic and a helicopter crewman were badly injured when a winch line broke as they were being lowered to the ship to treat a seafarer with a suspected heart condition.
On December 14, 2002, the vessel arrived here on its maiden voyage to make the first of 17 visits under the name Columbus New Zealand.
Under its present name it has made a further 41 calls since March, 2006.
Claus-Peter Offen entered the shipowning business when he bought a second-hand cargo ship in June, 1971.
The company now controls a large fleet of container ships built since 1993 all for chartering out to other operators.
Sixteen of these ships have made 342 local visits since February,2002.
When several new classes ranging from 12,552TEU to 14,000TEU are delivered over the next few years the fleet will number in the region of 130 vessels.
In 2007 the company decided to diversify into tanker operations.
It now has a fleet of 10 product carriers built since last year by the Hyundai Mipo shipyard.
